Letters: Sharply Divided Views On Afghan War Crim

As a physician married to a physician, I can empathize with Mary K. Moore. But while residency is certainly hard work, her plea for sympathy is a bit misguided. Residency hours are long because there is a tremendous amount of knowledge that must be acquired in a short amount of time. Restrictions are already being enacted to limit residents' working hours, but the only way to truly shorten hours is to extend the length of residency training. Patients don't conveniently become ill, go into labor or require surgery only during normal business hours. My medical degree was conferred with both "privileges and obligations." As physicians we are privileged to enter into our patients' lives and obligated to provide them with the best care possible, including being there when they need us. Moore seems to expect the privileges for her husband without the obligations.
Kristin K. Elliott, M.D.
Marquette, Mich.

(No) Parenting for Dummies

Cheers to Anna Quindlen for her straightforward words about what is required of people when they become parents ("In Search of a Grown-Up," The Last Word, Aug. 26). As a psychotherapist working with childhood-trauma survivors, I see in my clients the results of parenting gone seriously awry. Most of my clients have rarely or never experienced having another human being set aside his or her own concerns or pleasure so as to focus on them. This is the essence of good parenting, and it is a necessary component of successful development. If that doesn't occur, we will get yet another generation of narcissistically disturbed people who have no clue how to be parents.
Jo Nol
West Simsbury, Conn.

New York Says, 'Butts Out'

Hats off to New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his proposed deal to stamp out smoking in all restaurants and bars, parks and beaches ("The Battle Over Butts," Aug. 26). The smoking advocates interviewed in your article were hardly convincing in their gripes defending their right to end a bad day by expelling cigarette smoke into the population's air supply. These people don't know a bad day until they've battled chemotherapy or watched a loved one they spent years poisoning with secondhand smoke choke through it. Their "right" to smoke is, at the least, the height of discourteousness.
Holly Simpson
Chicago, Ill.

Mayor Bloomberg has proposed making all New York City workplaces--including restaurants and bars--smoke-free. Secondhand smoke kills. Employees in restaurants and bars that permit smoking are 50 percent more likely to die of lung cancer. Just 30 minutes of exposure changes the way that blood clots and increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. Proprietors of restaurants and bars, like all employers, should make their own choices on how to conduct business--as long as their business decisions do not endanger the health of their workers. Experiences in dozens of jurisdictions across the United States show that smoke-free-workplace legislation doesn't hurt the economy or business--except the tobacco industry's.
Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.
Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
New York, N.Y.