The Doctor Dance

"Want to be respected? Spend BIG money? Shop till you drop? Feel like you're better than everybody else... because you ARE? It's SIMPLE, it's EASY... easier than you think! Marry a Beverly Hills Doctor!" Jennie Louise Frankel, New York Times Best Selling author of "You'll Never Make Love In This Town Again" (over 450,000 copies sold) humorously shines a surgical bright white light on a group of professionals whose rarified universe she experienced first hand during her ten-year marriage to a Beverly Hills Doctor. The Doctor Dance is a non-fiction tell all book chronicling Jennie's observations as the 'almost' dutiful wife of a Board Certified Infectious Disease Specialist. As manager of her husband's office, Jennie noted the miracles and mistakes, amorous adventures, greed and triumphant accomplishments of doctors around her. Jennie and her husband's lavish lifestyle was funded by: insurance companies, drug conglomerates, health care providers and companies offering kickbacks; and willing patients seeking answers from doctors whose sometimes less than altruistic motives influenced their patients' care. The title ,"The Doctor Dance" was chosen because Jennie noticed that patients were often passed around from specialist to specialist who stood in line to sign the dance cards of the "good patients": those with private medical insurance; those with a terminal illness and three operations to go; those who were famous. For anyone who has ever had an experience with a doctor and wondered what the heck was going on, The Doctor Dance is a remarkably inciteful exposé of the doctor trade. Every doctor, every hospital, every drug company, every incident, every story is based on truth. Jennie admits that while belonging to “Le Doctor’s Wives’ Club," she gleefully and happily participated in the squandering of precious resources. She regrets her quiet compliance while observing events that could surely be labeled "unscrupulous at the least, even immoral –– and at times criminal." Yet, Jennie kept her secrets.... until now. She cautions that keeping secrets is an integral part of being a member in good standing of “The Club." Dr. Joseph E. Gutierrez, MD, FAC, points out in his Foreword to The Doctor Dance that "Many of the abuses and the shocking behavior here recounted by Jennie are largely addressed today by the American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs; the Joint Commission (formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, and most recently as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations); the American Hospital Association, etc." Though times have admittedly changed - these experiences happened just the same during the years Jennie managed her husbands' office (1985-1995). And sadly, some of these abuses continue today. If “The Doctor Dance” helps shine a light on your perception of doctors — or makes you question this self-serving medical system we’re stuck with in America — Obama care et al — or at the very least, makes you laugh out loud just once, then, Jennie’s own Doctor Dance will not have been in vain. So, put on your $2,000 Armani tuxedos and your Oscar De La Renta evening gowns, get out your dance cards and polish your patent-leather dancing shoes. Consider yourself hereby formally invited to attend "The Doctor Dance."