In response to stepping down as incoming Preseident of the American College of Surgeons, Lazar Greenfield MD fired off an unrepentant, angry-as-hell email to several national media organizations on Wednesday. Here’s the full text (with my comments in italics):
“The reports surrounding my resignation as President-elect of the American College of Surgeons lead readers to conclude that I represent an old-guard generation that represses women in surgery. Since nothing could be further from the truth, I can no longer remain silent in an attempt to protect the organization.
“These are the facts:
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Dr. Jeffrey Parks Website Dr. Jeffrey Parks is a board certified general surgeon working in Cleveland who writes regularly at Buckeye Surgeon.
“1. The editorial was an opinion-piece written for a monthly throw-away newspaper, not a scientific journal. It reaches supposedly mature readers interested in new discoveries. (All of a sudden Surgery News is just a “throwaway newspaper”. I’m pretty sure Doc Greenfield doesn’t describe his tenure as editor of GC News as “Editor of Throwaway Newspaper” on his CV. And anyway, what difference does it make where it was published? You click “publish” on your laptop, you have to deal with the consequences. Would it matter if he had slipped his Discourse on Semen into the Archives of Surgery? In Mad Magazine?)
“2. The biochemical properties of semen that were reviewed have been documented in peer-reviewed journals and represent the remarkable way that Nature promotes bonding between men and women, not something demeaning.
(The “science” on this is a little suspect, at best, as per Orac. And besides, I thought this was supposed to be a “joke”. Is it a joke or was it science? Or humor lightly sauteed in scientific olive oil? I don’t know whether to laugh or run a PubMed search.)
“3. My light-hearted comment related to Valentine’s Day was intended to amuse readers, but some found it offensive, so I extended sincere apologies and resigned as Editor-in-Chief of the paper. No one questioned my intent, since I have a long record of recruiting and promoting women in surgery. (Ah, the old “well some of my best friends are black people” defense.)
“4. That was not sufficient for some women who convinced the leadership that I was unsuited for the Presidency to which I had been elected. Facing threats of demonstrations by women at any medical meetings I might attend, I resigned.
(Only women found the article stupid and puerile and genuinely unfunny? Sure about that Lazar? I don’t have a vagina. And I thought you sounded ridiculous and would have laughed my ass off from the back row every time you got behind a podium to give a speech as President of the ACS).
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“I had hoped to make my experience one that others could learn from by appearing at meetings of women surgeons to discuss forms of hidden or unconscious discrimination, but that did not fit their agenda. There should have been a way to reach a less destructive outcome. (WTF does this paragraph even mean? Is he admitting that he may have expressed “hidden” or “unconscious” discrimination with his op-ed? Or is he implying that he is the one being discriminated against? And I love the phrase “destructive outcome”, turning the tables and presenting poor Doc Greenfield as the victim.)
“So lets reverse the situation, and say that a woman editor wrote something that some men found offensive. After they voiced their history of repression, she decided it would be best for the paper if she resigned as Editor. But that wasn’t enough, and other men’s organizations demanded that she resign as the incoming elected President. The conclusion is obvious: men are ruthless and vindictive.
(Oh my god. That might have been the most retarded concluding sentence to a written defense that I have ever read. The old role reversal argument! Which makes no sense! And allows him to passively assert that the women who bitched about his semen treatise are RUTHLESS and VINDICTIVE!)
“Lazar J. Greenfield, M.D.”
Clearly, that email was just awful. Could he have come off any whinier and self-pitying? He seems convinced that a small cadre of feminazis colluded to deny him his long overdue anointment as the chief representative of American surgeons. The email makes him look even more sexist than how he appeared after the original op-ed. Not a lick of contrition to be found. The clueless lack of self-awareness is just stupefying. The dude honestly feels like he’s been egregiously wronged. Anyway, that’s about all the Lazar Greenfield I can take for a week. Happy Easter everyone.
The author, Dr. Jeffrey Parks, is a board certified general surgeon working in Cleveland who writes regularly at Buckeye Surgeon.
Dr. Jeffrey Parks is a board certified general surgeon working in Cleveland who writes regularly at Buckeye Surgeon.
