It’s funny you mentioned that thread. I started it specifically with **gabriela ** in mind.
You are seriously suggesting that she is a charlatan, and only pretends to be a pathologist because of the adulation she gets from the board. Interesting thought.
Mind you, I only pretend to be a university administrator…oh, and I’m still awaiting my adulation!
The what of the what now?
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time this board has had a fairly popular and high-profile member caught pretending to be something they’re not. People have all kinds of strange motivations for oddball behavior. FTR, I tend to agree with Waverly; I don’t believe she was entirely forthcoming with us. This sudden disappearance, while a plausible explanation is certainly possible, is nevertheless…odd, to say the least.
Zombies got her. One of the dangers of her profession.
I think I saw her at the Mall of America on Black Friday. She was going to perform autopsies on the trampled shoppers.
Wouldn’t that be Mauled of America?
We probably won’t be able to hear until after the case is adjudicated. That is all that is required, after all. There are no prohibitions related to potential appeals. No covenants of confidentiality with the hospital, family of the deceased, or law enforcement. No oaths made to make no extrajudicial statements disseminated by means of public communications. Nope. None.
Could you provide a link on that one? Not that I disbelieve you-- I’d just like to see it for myself.
Sure thing. “Many years ago I was assisting in the ER and I went over to see a guy who was looking through his hand. Through where the knuckle used to be.” From here: Can you swat a bullet out of the air? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I expressed some small skeptisim that a knuckleless finger would remain attached. I was more skeptical about the ability to look through a hole that would be deformed and obscured by gore and the now unsupported finger. When I said as much, it changed from a hole which could be looked through to a hole just large enough to admit light. Admitting light is not the same as looking through, and of course we might only know of a hole small enough to admit light if we put a light behind it. I dunno. Maybe he had a flashlight in his good hand.
And I thought to myself, “Where have I come across this before?” Answer: the first 10min of From Dusk Till Dawn. It didn’t look believable then either.
It might have been the knuckle toward the palm, not on a finger. I like gabriela enough to give her the benefit of a doubt: she’s funny and kind and smart. Hell, maybe she’s on vacation.
Third third metacarpal head, where finger joins palm. http://mdchoice.com/xray/img_xr/h4.jpg
As I said, I can get my mind around the finger staying attached. Maybe. Not looking through the hole.
To Whynot and so many others: thank you for thinking of me so kindly.
I did take a Board hiatus, and I’m sorry for not alerting anyone. I will go on being on hiatus for the next month, as our annual program review for the forensic pathology fellowship is coming up, and I am program director.
But my word, when you go away, you do find out what people think of you.
Worship makes me uncomfortable; friendship makes me glow. Balance and perspective are always essential. There are huge numbers of people on this board I look up to, whose areas of expertise are far greater than mine, to whom I defer. Not just Qadgop the Mercotan, though he probably caps the pyramid. Whynot, Eve, Twickster, Sampiro and Scylla (the latchet of whose shoes, etc), Colibri, Mr. Bus Guy, Least Original User Name Ever, and dozens of posters in IT, biology, books television and movies, parenting, travel, guns, war…
But it does gripe me to see that people not in my field doubt my credentials based on disagreeing with me.
Waverly, are you in IT? What evidence could I provide you on this board without my real name, workplace, and Board certifications, which would make you feel that I was not a fraud?
It’s a Turing test. Isn’t it? I suppose that if I came up with forensic facts that could be checked on the Internet, you might say that I had obtained them on the Internet; and if I came up with forensic facts that could not be checked on the Internet, such as how it feels to palpate a steatotic liver or what my worst ever case was like, you could say that I had made them up, because they could not be checked on the Internet.
My husband says the only way out of a Turing test is testimony from a mutually agreed upon, competent authority. If the moderator of this board will consent, if I were to write to the moderator using my real name and invite him to inspect my listed affiliation with my workplace for a state government medical examiner’s office, my board certifications, my year of medical school graduation, my listed affiliations (I mean the AMA and the CAP and the AAFS and NAME and the SPS), newspaper quotes from testimony I have offered, and my publications, would you accept his word?
If not, how would you resolve the Turing test?
Yours attempting to proceed without heat (preferring light to heat any time),
Gabriela
Admirable restraint, my dear.
gabriela, thanks so much for checking in. I’m sorry this thread became a less than welcoming place to do so. I’m just glad you’re OK, really.
I feel like I should offer some advice on how to deal with nay-sayers, but I really don’t have any. Sometimes people just get ideas in their heads, and there’s not much you can do to dislodge them. For years, I’ve felt it a personal failing if I wasn’t liked and admired by everyone. But looking at it realistically, there’s just no way - and really, if I spend too much time trying to make it so, it’s just annoying to those who already do like and admire me (and they’re the important ones, you know! 
)
I wouldn’t personally say I have a case of “worship”. I admire you. You’re smart and funny, and you know stuff AND you take things I say seriously even though I’m a self-admitted alternative medicine practitioner. I don’t personally care what sort of initials you have after your name. It doesn’t affect me, and couldn’t possibly affect me until I was dead anyway! I’m not taking your medical advice as gospel, or performing home autopsies based on your stories - 'cause that would be dumb. On a practical level, it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re a forensic pathologist or a 12 year old anatomy prodigy. Whoever you are IRL (and I personally believe you are who you say), I like who you are here.
Anyway, take some time off, try not to stress out during reviews, and…
…when come back, bring pie.
Bless you.
I have sworn a mighty vow never to argue ad hominem.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep. But I like myself better in the morning.
thanks again, gabriela
All this is extraordinarily good advice from a person I respect. We have disagreed before in the TB thread, and to have you stand up for me, and teach me valuable and home truths based on your own life experience, is bringing a tear to my eye.
Heck, it’s enough to make an old agnostic think twice about reconsidering Wicca.
yours - will check in much later (have to stay on the boards for a day or two to make good on my offer if Waverly agrees to it), g
Some folks are just born suspisious I guess. FWIW I’ve never doubted you are who you say you are and have always enjoyed your posts. I’m guessing I’d be part of the vast majority in that opinion. Indeed it would seem almost “tin-foil-hattish” to think otherwise.
Good luck with the reviews and hurry back.
SeaDog (Fellow dealer with dead stuff)
I agree entirely.
Personally, I don’t ever see the point in arguing over people’s real-life credentials on a message board. If you can’t take what people say at face value, it seems to me that there is little point in discussing anything with them. The same goes for real life itself - I’d rather face the world trusting everyone unless they give me reason not to, than assume everyone is out to get me from the off. I sincerely think, and hope, that most people have the same attitude.