The Johns Hopkins Hospital Shooting

The actions of a severely overwrought individual has resulted in his suicide, the death of his mother, and the near death of her doctor. What a total nightmare! And my heart goes out to both families, and of course the doctor.

The hospital and the police responded well to the situation. Yet, they are now going to restudy the situation to see what could have been done to prevent it so that such a thing might not happen in the future.

Folks "Compost happens!" You cannot plan to prevent these "outliers." All you can possibly do is to try to prevent, contain and/or minimize the more common, predictable disasters. That's what the "bell curve" is all about. Aim for the middle!

We have seen this cycle before - think Virginia Tech and several other educational institutions, not to mention governmental facilities. Here the "wild card" gets thrown down and people get hurt or killed. You CANNOT plan for and prevent these "off the wall" incidences. For every one you anticipate, a nut will find 10 more.

I suspect that soon, the hospital, followed by countless other hospitals, will implement some things at ridiculous prices to prevent this from happening again. Great! What is the cost/benefit analysis. Recognizing that a person's life is invaluable, you can't answer. Still...

At our institution, we have already done similar things, none of which will prevent someone from coming in and shooting down a significant number of people, long before he or she can be "taken out." Yet, from a liability standpoint, I guess we have taken appropriate action. But where could the dollars have been more effectively used?

People ask me how I feel about all of this (see above) but simply put, I base all decisions of risk and danger upon that activity that I do that has the greatest danger, the one that results in 30-40,000 deaths a year. (How many shooting or similar deaths took place in hospitals?) If the danger of doing something or being somewhere is less than the dangers of driving, which I do daily for an average time of 1 hour, I don't worry about it. And NEITHER SHOULD YOU or the rest of the country! I am TOTALLY confident that I will not be shot going into Johns Hopkins Hospital or my college and I would bet the farm on it. (However, I would only bet half the farm about my chances of walking through some areas of Baltimore. There you are dealing with predators not crazies.)