The government will spend millions probing into the life of Nidal Hasan the Fort Hood shooter who took the life of 13 people and injured 30 others. I could save them a lot of money because I know his situation well. Having served in the military at Walter Reed and also having worked with various residencies and physicians of all types for over 50 years I can speak with some degree of authority.

I feel confident in the profile of this individual that I could construct. To begin with he is a Muslim who is indoctrinated with the beliefs of this religion. He believes that the rest of us are infidels and that it is a holy thing to take out as many Christians and Jews as possible even at the expense of his own life. He, of course, is totally opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and certainly was not going to tolerate being deployed to fight against his brethren. The fact that he is an American citizen and has been a quiet neighbor means nothing.

He was a poor physician who didn’t fit into the mold of the average student in training. This has not always been the case, but currently his chosen field of psychiatry is a noncompetitive residency and attracts the poorest and most dysfunctional students. There are of course exceptions to this statement but Hasan was no exception, he was the norm. Some of the brightest students I have known have chosen psychiatry for a career but they are the exception. It is no surprise that he received poor residency evaluations and I’m sure he was a misfit throughout his entire training.

The fact that he was a major in the army means nothing. Doctors are promoted automatically because of time in rank and merit is not a consideration in the promotions process. He could have been a psychotic Adolph Hitler and still have made colonel.

The sad thing is that we allow dysfunctional people to complete residency training or medical school and even serve in the military. We are reluctant to dismiss these misfits because it’s too much trouble and there will be an army of lawyers down on us for violating the individual’s civil rights. As a result they continue to marginally get through and do much harm to patients and have the potential to perform a heinous act such as the massacre at Fort Hood.

That’s my analysis from the porch and I suspect it is completely correct. My recommendation is to turn off the ventilator and save the taxpayers some money.