READ ABOUT DR. BUCKLER in the PELICAN PRESS, Sarasota, Fl. newspaper article of March 6, 2008
Karen Mamone
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| Dr. Marlene Buckler. PHOTO BY FRANK TUCCIARONE | | Dr. No: rebel MD with a cause
By Karen Mamone
"Stay away from doctors and don't take pills."
Now this is not your standard medical advice.
But then again, Sarasota physician Marlene Buckler, MD, FACEP, is not your standard medical doctor.
After more than 15 years of full-time experience in emergency medicine, this veteran of the ER, says, "... I used to see nothing wrong with people going to doctors. I also used to believe that pills had overall beneficial effects and that folks would be prescribed medications only when it was in their best interest. I have changed my mind."
Buckler, who was an operating room RN and an educator before she embarked on medical school studies at the age of 40, has reached the point where she thinks she may be able to help more people by talking and writing about medicine than actually practicing it.
Now she is at work on a new book, and is the originator of a new medical Web site of the same name: "Stay Out of My ER!"
Medical school, says Buckler, was simply not an option that occurred to her growing up in the '50s in Nova Scotia. There was no question of there being any money for college, and certainly not for a girl to go to college.
Instead, she went to nursing school and became a registered nurse. She married and had four children. But after many years of nursing, she came to another watershed conclusion: "You don't have to be that smart to be a doctor."
All you have to do is work your buns off.
So, she juggled toddlers, nursing and home, and completed a Bachelor of Science degree, with a major in psychology, in her late 30s. Then she enrolled in Dalhousie University School of Medicine in Halifax, graduating in, she is proud to note, the top half of her class.
Shall we mention here that Marlene Buckler is one tough cookie?
Not in a bulldozer, Ma Barker kind of way, but in a straight-talking, "Don't tell me what I can do and what I can't" sort of way.
And if it seems as if there is little she cannot handle, her varied background gives Buckler a wealth of experience from which to draw. She is equally at home surrounded by children, making life-and-death decisions in the ER, giving advice to patients and families, counselling the bereaved and working out problems with consultants, hospital administrators, nurses and EMS personnel.
In her 60 years, Buckler has been a nurse, wife, mother, business owner, pre-school teacher, magazine editor, doctor, divorcee, grandmother and even a patient herself on occasion.
All that fosters a certain level of confidence.
It also has brought her to a place where she wants to share with others what she has seen and learned.
And if that seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, well, too bad.
In her years in the ER, Buckler says she has "seen a constant parade of people whom I believe are worse off because they went to doctors and took pills."
The doctor is quick to mention that if your appendix is ready to burst, or a bone is sticking out of your leg, or if you have chest pain, can't breathe "and feel like you're dying of a heart attack and would rather not let nature take its course, by all means, come see me in the ER!"
There are, she acknowledges, many legitimate reasons for seeking the advice of a doctor, a practitioner of traditional western medicine.
But, she adds, "in so many cases not only is it not necessary, the plain truth is you would probably be better off to stay home and read a book. Really."
Overuse and over-prescription of antibiotics is just one of the pervasive reasons, Buckler says. People (and doctors) are conditioned to treat a myriad of conditions and situations with a pill.
"Yes, the medical profession has trained you well," she says. "Job security, you know."
Day after day, Dr. Buckler saw patients who came into the ER because they could not sleep or because they were depressed. Nobody, she said, had ever suggested the possibility that there was any other choice but taking a Restoril or a Prozac.
She became known for giving patients a handout she wrote about other ways to deal with stress and anxiety; it even included a reading list that listed authors from Dr. Phil to Eckhart Tolle.
Then there is the antibiotics brigade.
After a week of being stuffed up and achy, people figure it's time for an antibiotic.
"Most cases of bronchitis and sinusitis are viral illnesses or related to allergies," she says. "Antibiotics do not kill viruses, nor do they treat allergies. Oh, sure, you'll get better and you'll think the antibiotic pills did it, but, in truth, time and your immune system are what did it."
The possible ill effects of antibiotics are consistently underrated. The medications can even cause allergic reactions, sometimes life-threatening ones, Buckler says.
Another problem with antibiotics is that over the years since the successful introduction of penicillin, she says, antibiotics have been prescribed so much that bacteria, the little bugs we are trying to kill, have become resistant to many of the drugs, necessitating the development of more and more powerful medications to kill the stronger bacteria.
Another example she cites, of the ability of medications to cause harm is a condition called Steven Johnson's Syndrome and its ultimately lethal cousin, toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). These conditions can develop as drug reactions to certain antibiotics, and unless the patient has a previous history of such a condition, the doctor has no way of knowing that it will happen. TEN causes huge blisters to form everywhere, with subsequent sloughing of the skin. It's the equivalent of having second-degree burns over your entire body.
"What a shame if you die a slow painful death after taking a medication you did not need in the first place. Now that's what I call having a bad day."
The idea of taking a break from the ER to write and to advocate a better way for both patients and doctors to deal with maladies has been brewing in Buckler for a few years now.
She began writing down some of her experiences in the emergency room as short stories and published them in "EM Pulse," the official magazine of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians (FCEP), the Florida chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).
She attended several writers' conferences and decided to launch a Web site as a way of introducing herself to readers, and as a way of sharing some of her experiences with them.
In time, she plans to organize public events to raise awareness about preventive medicine and to encourage people to take a more active role in their health care. She is also working on expanding the Web site to allow readers to email her questions and to offer links to many health-related resources.
* Contact Dr. Buckler at www.StayOutofMy ER.com.
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