Do ‘professionals’ actually take the time to read?

… sometimes I seriously have to wonder.

I recently posed the question to the members of FLUTE List as to whether or not any of them knew of any reputable hand specialists in British Columbia, since my doctor (whom I’d previously named Pawdoc) wants to send me a local surgeon for carpal tunnel surgery. According to Pawdoc, this surgeon operates on many cases of carpal tunnel and is a good person to be referred to …

so what’s the problem in that? the majority of the surgeon’s clients are people who get repetitive stress injuries working in sawmills and mines. As any musician can tell you, the hands of a musician are a far cry from those of mine and mill workers in terms of how they are treated in the workplace, and it only stands to reason that there would be a similar differential in the way they are cared for medically …

Anyway, upon posing this question, I received a wonderful diatribe of everything BUT what I was asking about … it is completely beyond me how anyone can offer credentials of doctors in Philadelphia, seminars on body mapping, and the ever popular "I don’t have a damn clue abou this topic, but I have to have my name show up in the inboxes of 250 or so people every day, so I’ll blather on about something completely irrelevant" … how do those replies have ANYTHING to do with the simple request for names of reputable HAND SPECIALISTS in BRITISH COLUMBIA?!?!?!

… if I asked you to play me Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, would you instead twang out a scale on a half-broken harpsichord?