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Saturday, August 10, 2019

Dumacity: Avoid It, Live Long, and Prosper



As a physician for thirty-eight years, I've seen a lot. For many people, the key to health is avoiding bad decisions. I call that DUMACITY*, the act or condition of being a dumba**. 

Yes, it's mildly profane. As a coach, I avoid profanity. Mom described profanity as reflecting a lack of vocabulary. 


Dumacity maims. Dumacity kills. I don't want patients, players, friends, and family to be  victims or cause another's injury. 

Educate our players. Here are some charts and a partial list: 



Drinking and driving doesn't discriminate by age. 



At 60 miles per hour, three seconds of distracted driving is (88 feet/sec x 3 = 264 feet) almost the length of a football field.  

- Drinking and driving
- Being a passenger of a drunk driver
- Random drug use...friends don't give friends drugs. Skittles parties can kill. 
- Dangerous selfies (here I am on a cliff, cell tower, etc). Men make up about three-quarters of selfie deaths and millennials over eighty percent. 
- Don't text and drive or drive distracted.
- Texting and crossing streets
- Exposures to STDs
- Unsafe firearms storage and use
- Tobacco in any form
- Vaping
- Energy drinks (gateway to alcohol and stimulant drug use)
- Hassling the police (they have the gun and badge)

- Tide pod ingestion

- Miscellaneous (quarry diving, insecticide inhalation, snowmobile avalanche, swimming with seals on the Cape, and so on and so on)




If you're blessed with good health and youth, don't sacrifice both on the altar of dumacity (this belongs in Webster's)


The life we save can be our own.