My experience in 2007

No prayer goes unanswered. The Gohonzon, Namu Myoho renge kyo, Shakyamuni Buddha, and Nichiren Daishonin, are the reality that makes these words true.

My wife had a serious illness and multiple medical problems but was rarely ever down nor did she miss a beat working from dusk to dawn, cooking, doing the laundry, cleaning, interior decorating, carpentry, balancing the budget, paying the bills, tending to the animals, looking pretty, fuggettabout it.

She is my number one human friend and I'm not the easiest person to get along with even when I like or love you.

Anyway, one february, my wife's specialist tells us that there is a medicine that will cure my wife's illness. It is very expensive but there should be no problem because my insurance will pay for it. So he orders the medicine. The day before she is to start the medicine, the specialist tells us that it was denied by the insurance company. I tell him, "no way, it says so right here in my benefit package which I read ten times." He says, you better talk to them. I call them up and tell the representative that it says on page x paragraph y that this disease and treatment is fully covered. She starts arguing with me. I tell her to get her supervisor on the phone. I tell the supervisor the same thing. She asks me if I also read the contract. I told her I read that too and more than a dozen times. She says to me, "did you read the fine print on page x". I said, I'm not sure, so I go to page x and read the fine print, "depending on the rider." I say to her, "OK, what about my rider?" She says that of the three plans, you chose the second plan and the rider exempts this disease and treatment. I say, "you have got to be fucking kidding" More than pissed, I'm really. really sad. So I call the local pharmacist and he tells me the medicine will be $2800.00 a month for 11 months, if you don't need the other medicine for the potential side effects of the first medicine. I say. "and if we need that medicine." He tells me, "another $2700.00 a month". I'm already paying the IRS $2700.00 dollars a month (not being Tom Daschle, I pay interest and penalties) and two additional loans for $1700.00 and then there are the living expenses another $3000.00 a month or more since my son is in PA school and I only have ten grand in the bank and take home less than a hundred grand. Then my boss tells me they are closing the urgent care center at night. By March 3rd I'm out of a job. For a primary care physician, its not like you just walk into another position, especially when your seeking a warmer climate (and another state license) with a better cost and standard of living. The applications may run as long as thirty pages and there are reams of documents and I need transcripts from Rome and Sardinia which I lost in a flood a few years back.

I contact several dozen recruiters and go on interviews, Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma (Florida, Texas, and California require 9-12 months or more to get a license). We're running out of money. Strangely, we don't have a care in the world and I take my last several thousand dollars and tell Nancy, lets make this a vacation. My friend takes my cats and we take Vodkaputtputt the dog. In Biloxi we soak up some sun and I win a thousand playing poker. A wonderful clinic in Oklahoma offers me a job as long as I can get my Oklahoma license and begin work by July 1.

We get back with about two grand in the bank. The next day, I get a call from a recruiter and she tells me she can get me a temporary Nebraska license in five days if I agree to work in the Beatrice State Development Center as one of the primary care doctors for the severely mentally and physically disabled for "only" $4000/week and all expenses. I said I'll think about it.......NOT. For the next week I frantically work on getting all my credentials for the Oklahoma license. Within a week I was in Nebraska. I was going through a three day orientation but by the third day, the day before I was to begin work, no license was granted. I went to work on the fourth day anyway and the Nebraska license showed up in the computer by 8 AM.

7 weeks later, Nancy had already sorted and packed everything and the movers had already taken our stuff. I arrive home and that evening we're off to the Sooner state, the land of the "red people" (Choctaw for Oklahoma). Nancy looks like a red person and I advise her to tell everyone, that "I am of the Fukowy tribe of Brooklyn".

Man its hot here, almost every day, a 105 - 110 degree heat index. We settle in to the Motel 6 without a place to stay and no Oklahoma license. At least we have enough money to last us a few months. I see an add in the county paper for a place that "needs a little work" for $4000 down and $700/month on ten acres. We plop down a $1000 deposit so the owner, a "lovely" Tulsa woman, won't continue to show it. We go to check it out, about twenty miles in the middle of nowhere over and around an unmaintained dirt road passing several dozen signs which read trespassers or burglers will be shot. The house needed a little work, a little demolition and complete reconstruction. Back to Motel 6 with no place to stay, my thousand dollar poker winnings down the drain and our stuff to arrive in a day or two. I call a realtor. Joey Sport answers. He is a country boy and fireman, and asks me if I would like to see a house he's renting for $600 a month. That night we meet him and see the house, a gorgeous little impeccably maintained house on 3.5 pristine acres with hummingbirds and copperheads on a paved road and 20 minutes from the clinic. Joey is by far the best landlord we ever had and the only person I know who never heard of iced coffee, let alone Buddhism.

It was June 23rd and I had started my orientation at the clinic where I was to begin work on July 1st (it was in my contract that if I were not to begin work by July 1st, my three year contract would be void). Still living in the Motel 6 because our furniture hadn't yet arrived, I checked on the status of my application. They had received my transcripts from Sardinia but not Rome (my express mail to Rome was returned unsigned). I thought, "Oh shit!" However, for some reason my application was marked complete and I would be receiving an answer in a day or two.

I'm doing my orientation at the clinic and Monday June 29th, I get a fax from the Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision, that the Board meeting would be on Tuesday, June 30th and they requested that I appear before the 14 member board to answer several questions: Why had I worked in so many different clinics and settings?"; How could I consider my medical education comparable to the medical education of a university of Oklahoma graduate?": and, "Why did I choose to practice in Oklahoma?" Fortunately, I had my answer to the third and last question as I attended a county medical board meeting the day before and was given the United States report on the state of health of Oklahomans that outlined the whys and hows of its near failing grade (D-).

Even as a disciple of Nichiren Daishonin, I was nervous. But I don't chant for stuff. So instead I started chanting to reveal Buddhahood. After 15 minutes or so I was at ease and happy and, within several minutes after chanting, I had a strategy to prepare for the first board question: The Oklahomans love their football, so I researched the ten greatest football players in the history of the university of Oklahoma and their careers in the NFL. Once again, most fortunately, I found three Oklahoma NFL all pros who played for from three to six NFL teams during their career. I had my answer to the first question: I am a free agent as were they and I go whereever I get the best contract. The second question was the most difficult to answer because my medical education was far less rigorous and more circuitous than that of the typical graduate from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, having trained in Italy and in the Caribbean. Before bed the night before I was browsing through my credential packet and I came upon my surgical inservice exam score reports (I had done four years of a surgical residency). I had gone over these many times in the past and I had my first and fourth year reports. The total scores were quite good, an 82nd percentile the first year which means, of all the first year surgical interns in the country, only 18% scored better and a 77th percentile my fourth year. The tests were broken down into categories however, and I never noticed before that, in cardivascular, I had only scored a 14th percentile my first year which improved to an 88th percentile by the fourth year. I had my answer to the second question.

Quite confident, I get up at 5:30 am and drive the two and a half hours to Oklahoma City. Arriving real early for my supposed 10:30 interview, I grab a double expresso and some breakfast. I get to the building more than an hour early and to my surprise, thirty or so other doctors are being interviewed in a room with microphones and the fourteen board members, one of whom was a state judge.

I was amazed and elated. The first six doctors, representing various specialties, breezed through despite most of them having an arrest or two, multiple malpractice violations, forced resignations, poor performance ratings or references, and even one radiologist who lied to the board that he only took United States medical licensing exam one time when in reality he took it five times before he passed. His lame excuse was his secretary filled out the application. Then, an hour before lunch (they are running rather late) the board members become real grumpy. Excellent doctors with credentials and experience up to yin yang were summarily rejected or asked to return in six months or a year or to seek additional training before they would obtain another invitation to sit before the board. I started to chant to myself. There was a break for about 10 minutes and all the board members grabbed sandwiches and drinks and the proceeding began again. They called me up. The first thing asked is, "Do you swear to tell the truth?" Then everyone is allowed to pass out additional information in 14 copies. No one else did but me. I passed around two additional references from the administrators of the Eastern Oklahoma Federally Qualified Health Centers and my surgical inservice exam scores with my improvement in the cardiovascular category highlighted. Lastly, they asked if you had a presentation. I had. I started to talk and all the answers to their questions flowed out like Daimoku. They interrupted to ask additional questions. After about five minutes, I was the only physician I witnessed whose approval for license was unanimous. a tear in my eye, I thanked the board members. Needless to say, I could now afford the medicine that effected a cure for my wife.