The Entangled Mirror Hole — Great conversations with my students

Issue 2: The Suspect Homicide That Was Not

I’m compelled to share a personal story from early in my career. In my first several months of training in public health, my instructor who would become my lifelong mentor, explained carefully what he knew about the extraordinary mission that we were driving towards. And it is now quite extraordinary to look back at that trainee, filled with enthusiasm and trepidation, and consider that I never expected to be writing about it to you, almost 30 years later. Although I have recalled the scenario and shared the concept with only a few close friends or family members, true to my code of ethics, I purposely forgot their names and scrubbed the embarrassing aspects that I will not reveal to you at this time, from my mind. This seems an excellent opportunity to share a day in the life of the health inspector and give you a glimpse of regulatory authority and what constitutes good judgment.

Entry: In even the best-case scenarios, I learned already that we do not have the authority to demand entrance to a private home, unless the scenario creates a great enough danger to population health that coordinated efforts with law enforcement, perhaps even fire, would be necessary. This case was extreme in that the elderly woman standing at the door, holding a aluminum baseball bat menacingly, was yelling that she would not allow inference. We had some convincing to do…