I brought a friend to the hospital yesterday for bypass surgery. It was going to be a 2 month wait to get him in because of the shortage of heart surgeons. The last few years few new doctors have been going into heart surgery because, with the changes to insurance programs, heart surgeons make very little.

Hospitals have been going to the government to complain about the extensive training required to do surgery. The requirements are expensive so few will go into the field and the hospitals do not want to pay more in order to attract doctors into the field. If the hospitals have to pay surgeons more it will be harmful to the public. Fortunately the requirements to do surgery have been lowered recently to help alleviate the shortage and my friend was able to get in in only a month!

Funeral is tomorrow. But, at least we got him in a month quicker.

Good luck in getting the requirements lowered to be an airline pilot. I would hate to see the regional airlines have to pay pilots more, which would be harmful to the public. And, keeping things in perspective, we should remember, those Colgan pilots brought the passengers over 99.9% of the way safely to Buffalo. Is that .1% extra bit of safety really worth the millions of dollars it will cost to pay individuals enough to become pilots?