In order to earn the money to pay back the plane fares and hotel rooms that end up on my credit card no matter how careful I am to get that covered in advance when I am traveling to try to earn money to pay for the plane fares and hotels that the last bunch haven't reimbursed me for yet....well you can see how circular this gets....it is important to keep my invoices straight.
Do you think this is easy? Every Type 2 Advisory Board for every different Pharmaceutical Company and every Invited Talk at Universities and National and International Meetings requires a different contract and different honorarium and different reimbursement rules using different Meeting Planner Organizations, and there are dozens of those in a year. I have a special rolladex just for this.
You try traveling once a week during high travel season for all those different companies and universities and secretariats, then look at your credit card bills even when you had been assured by everybody that all of that would be a.) paid in advance and b.)not by you!
Fortunately I am a very well organized person, when it comes to money somebody owes me.
Here is an example of a letter that I might have to write on a normal work day in between my fifteen patients, forty phone calls, rejection letters from medical journals, emails from New York University asking me to speak at their Advanced Course in Rheumatology or from EULAR asking me to fly to Copenhagen to give a talk on lupus clinical trials, rejection letters from granting agencies, angry letters from my boss after I made the Head of HR cry because she held up a new hire in my Department by six months, emails from the Lupus Foundation of America telling me I just won a national award, letters from the CEO of our organization telling me that my Department is in debt again (or would it be more accurate to describe that as telling me AGAIN that my Department is in debt?), reporters wanting to know what I think of the recent press release on a failed clinical trial for lupus, and investors wanting to know what I think of the recent press release on a failed clinical trial for lupus, and Diva instant messaging me to tell me her career is over, her lab is bankrupt, all her papers and grants have been rejected, and asking me, by the way, to check a link to eBay and give her my honest opinion on a shabby chic dresser for her beach house....
To RKO Events, Inc.
Attention: Chelsea
(I write while swimming upstream against all of the above communications while a conference call from one of the endless working groups I belong to blares through my speaker phone....)
Hi Chelsea:
Can you give me an estimate of when I can expect to receive my honorarium for the Phenergan Pharmaceuticals Advisory Board held last August 18 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Santa Ana California? Attached is a copy of my invoice for this honorarium plus the expenses that I paid for travel first submitted Sept 1st and subsequently resubmitted Oct 1, Nov 1 and December 1.
Perhaps you were not expecting to hear from me again until Jan 1? However my policy is to cut in half the time between invoice submissions at each subsequent submission after the fourth invoice. Thus you heard from me today (two weeks after the last submission.)
If I do not receive my check, you can expect, then, to hear from me again in one week, then in three and one half days. After that I will start touching base with you by phone. Your first phone call can be expected one and three fourth days after the last letter. The second phone call will come to you one day later (give or take a few hours, it is hard to be perfectly accurate about these things once it starts getting that frequent, we are all busy, of course.
The following day I will call you twice. The day after that I will call you four times and the day after that……well you get the idea.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Della Sugar, M.D.
PS: Have a nice day.
Then I cut and paste and edit down this letter to recycle for my next invoice which will go something like this….
To the Lewis Professional Events Group, Ltd. (I write)
Attention: Monique
Dear Monique:
Can you give me an estimate of when I can expect to receive my honorarium for the Emerson University Field Day in Rheumatology held last October 1 in Topeka? Attached is a copy of my invoice for this honorarium plus the expenses that I paid for travel first submitted October 12 and subsequently resubmitted on Nov 1 and December 1. Perhaps you were not expecting to hear from me again until Jan 1? However my policy is to cut in half the time between invoice submissions at each subsequent submission after the third invoice……
Now I hear a crisp click sounding from my computer, another email coming in. I interrupt my billing to see who is writing to me. You never know, it could be a man. Or money.
It was from Mr. Ian Umbabwe from the National Bank of Ghana, informing me that because of my reliable reputation he needed me to facilitate a transfer two million pounds of an inheritance from the former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe into my account, which must leave his country immediately because the former Prime Minister’s enemies were trying to steal it. So if I could just send my bank account number he could effect a wire transfer immediately and I could keep fifteen percent of the two million pounds and….
Two red flags. Mr Umbabwe is asking for my bank account number and I do not have a reliable reputation. I clicked the little button under my email box that reads:
REPORT SPAM.
Click, here came another email.
It is from Harvard Medical School.
Sure it is.
Dear Dr. Sooker:
At the request of Dean Forsythe, we are inviting you to join the Promotions Committee for Dr. Sally O’Malley who is a candidate for appointment as Professor of Medicine. Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you can participate in this important faculty activity.
Please forward your full address, title, and CV. We will also need your social security number in order to process your honorarium.
Sincerely,
Anna Bean
Secretary to the Dean
Harvard Medical School
Three red flags. My name is Sugar, not Sooker, I am not a member of the faculty of Harvard Medical School and they were asking for my social security number. Not to mention who in the Hell would name their daughter Sally O’Malley. Or Anna Bean.
REPORT SPAM
Click. Another incoming email.
Uh oh. It was Awwwww.
Awwwww had been sending me letters through the internet dating site for a few weeks. I was only answering one out of every four or five of his emails, and only then because he seemed so lonely and I am a sucker.
I was hoping he would eventually decide I was too difficult to get hold of and maybe he would find some other woman who wrote him more often. And who didn’t mind a guy who wrote things like “at my age why would you be interested in me?” after saying in his web profile that he was a year younger than me.
Dear Awwwww: (I had explained in one of my rare replys.)
On the internet, it is socially acceptable to understate your real age by up to three years as long as the error is less than 5% of your total age (although I am not sure whether that 5% applies to the total age you really are or the one you are pretending to be).
You do the arithmetic, allowing for those differences it is likely there would still be, by my calculations less than a year between our ages if we are both telling the truth and less than six years in the worst case scenario. I am pretty sure that I would still be younger than you, unless you are telling the truth, so you might still harbor illusions that I am beautiful. Especially if you have noticed a little trouble reading menus in dim restaurants.
Here is a little test that could clear things up between us:
What was blowin in the wind?
Name all the Beatles
Who was Tricky Dick?
Where was "Nam?"
If you score at least seventy five percent on this test it is unlikely that our age difference is significant.
You may be wondering why I am giving romantic advice to men who are trying to date me on the Internet? Once a witch, always a witch!
He had written me back:
Dear Della:
OK, this could get real tricky. Honestly, I don't know whether I lied about my age or not and I am to afraid to go look what I listed as my birthday. I am a very honest guy, but I don't want to look as I am afraid I might have lied ... well, maybe not lied, but stretched the truth a little. Still, following your 5% rule I should have sufficient leeway to be able to make it work, so, in my opinion it makes little difference whether I lied or not.
Oh, and I have 20/20 eyesight. I think you are just trying to be very modest. I think you are very beautiful inside and out. That means a lot to a guy my age, to think someone who looks like you might care.
Question: Why are you interested in me anyway?
Awwwwww
That was the whole point. I wasn’t.
Not because of his age, whatever it was, but because if you can’t think of yourself as worthy of me, why should I?
It was more than that. If you can’t flirt with me, why would I bother to go out with you? If I want a perfunctory relationship and receive endless gratitude I can take my cleaning lady out.
So here he was, trying again:
Dear Della
The communications I had received from you before you stopped writing to me was simply scintillating and was the highlight of my day. Are you still out there somewhere? Anyway, I sure want to continue exchanging email ... hoping that we eventually get down to something important.
Anyway, I do think you are cute and adorable and also with my advanced age I think it could be very important to me to have a real Dr. in my future.
Especially after President Obama and his buddies in the US Congress get through with their re-model of our health care system
So, I think I am already in love with you even though I don't really know you.
I probably should stop here as I really may have scared you off and this will probably finish the job,
Awwww
He had that one right.
I needed to stop this, cold, before I got mean. Ooops. Too late.
Dear Awwww, (I wrote.)
I am not cute and adorable.
What I am is a strong supporter of President Obama and his buddies (but I prefer to think of them as colleagues) in the US Congress. I am a real doctor and I understand how broken our current system of health care is, probably a lot better than you do.
If you happen to be receiving Medicare and are opposed to giving government-supported healthcare to younger people whose lives have been devastated by cancer, diabetes, or life-threatening injuries, then you are a hypocrite.
Furthermore, I am not intrigued by the possibility of a relationship that requires me to render medical care.
Sorry.
Della
Click. It was from Harvard Medical School again.
Dear Dr. Sugar:
I apologize for spelling your name wrong, and for sending you the letter that was intended for internal faculty. Because of your expertise in lupus, we are asking you if you can consider serving as an external member of the Promotions Committee for Dr. Sally O’Malley, candidate for promotion to Professor of Medicine.
This will entail a review of the candidates CV, a critique of her major papers and contributions to the field, and participation in two conferences with the rest of the committee. Your participation can be by telephone.
If you are able to participate on the committee please forward your CV to me at your earliest convenience.
There will be a five hundred dollar honorarium for your service.
Sincerely,
Anna Bean
Secretary to the Dean
Havard Medical School
Diva Instant Messaged me:
Did you check out my dresser on E Bay? And the vintage glass knobs?
Yup, I replied
Well?
I didn’t like the shape.
Why?
It looked like a bathtub.
Really?
Yeah, ever heard of Sally O’Malley?
Yeah, she does mouse clinical trials at Harvard.
Is she smart?
Yeah, I read one of her grants once. I think I gave it a good score. Yeah, it was about NF kappa B and T cells and she was going to treat the lupus mice with an anti-CDR and do little mouse EKGs. Can you imagine putting little electrodes on the baby mice and doing EKGs? But she did it, she had little mouse EKGs as preliminary data in the application. She diagnosed them all with myocarditis. I wonder how she taped them down?
Wow that’s a good question.
Get it? If you can sort them out with EKGs you can have a randomized trial without killing them. I loved that grant.
I know you did, she must have gotten it funded, they are thinking of promoting her to Professor
No shit. Isn’t she a woman?
No shit. And Della Sugar from Oklahoma is gonna make it happen.
Click
It was Awwww again. Here was his reply:
OK (insert smiley face)
It is always best to get these things out of the way before they go further. I find it amazing that a highly educated person would suggest someone be a hypocrite for having a political opinion. I would have you know that I am no hypocrite. You may be a real Dr. but I am no political fool. I served in the State Legislature for 10 years and served my country as an appointed official at the highest level of our federal government and as such probably know a hell of a lot more than you do about the federal government.
It is people just like you and your Obama that are set out to ruin this country. I probably know as many "real" MDs as you as I have been involved in several studies involving health care in this country. Your views are way in the minority when it comes to true practicing MDs. This country is sitting on the verge of financial failure and you and your Obama are set on a course of action that will further drive this country into red ink.
I may be receiving Medicare benefits, but that has no impact on my ability to think and to understand issues involving dollars and sense. It is a socialist system that will simply fail as soon as you and Obama run out of other peoples money to spend.
I am way more concerned about the financial future of my children than Medicare. This health care bill Obama is supporting will turn out to be the biggest financial drain in the history of this country.
You my dear are an IDIOT if you think this will solve anything.
I am glad as hell you let your true colors come through with this email. I am a tolerant man and have always been able to respect individual thought and opinion. I have always had a healthy respect for others opinions on all issues. I have never ever referred to another human as a hypocrite for their opinion no matter how wrong I may have thought they might be.
Wow, you are really a piece of work and I am glad as hell I never ever got the chance to meet you in person as you are sure an ugly person on the inside.
YOU ARE AN UGLY UGLY UGLY UGLY person and YOU ARE FULL OF HATE.
Never discuss politics with strange bedfellows. Or strange wannabe bedfellows. Or was the political anger beside the point? I don’t know why people get so personal about rejection, but when they do.....
BLOCK HIM
Dear Ms. Bean (I wrote)
I would be delighted to serve on the promotions committee for Dr. O’Malley. Attached is my CV. I await further particulars.
Sincerely,
Della Sugar
Della Sugar, M.D.
Ardmore Medical Research Foundation
Ardmore, Oklahoma
Can you imagine that? A check for 500 bucks from Harvard. I can frame it or something.
Alternatively, if they don’t pay my third invoice....
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