If We Don't Speak Out Nothing Changes

How bad does it have to get before people speak out.  It is a moral obligation to shine light on things that are not right.  It is not right to create fear in a neighborhood and fine poor people for tall grass. I have had many cases in my life where I saw corruption.  

When I was in gradschool, I took a year off and worked at the Veterans Hospital in Dallas TX.  I love lab work, and I had so much freedom as the head technician there.  However, there were some strange things right from the start.  The place was so dirty, and to do microdialysis requires that you have a completely sterile environment.  I spent my first month cleaning.

Second, we used restricted drugs for our anastesia.  You must log all use of these drugs, and when I asked about this, I was shown a drawer full of empty bottles.  The manager said, "Here is our log."

But the real issue didn't become apparent until some time later.  I had cleaned up the system and was getting good data when the lab manager switched out the liquid mobile phase I was using and put in his own.  At first I liked it because it generated HUGE data peaks.  Something was odd though.  My data started to change.  Instead of having a rise and fall in serotonin levels, now they just rose and stayed elevated.  

After several weeks of trying to understand the issue, I finally gave up.  Because we were collecting so much data I was given an assistant.  The new guy didn't understand how to mix the mobile phase properly and so we wound up having two different formula.  This is not really an issue since each experiment is tuned, so to speak.  But it revealed the fact that the large data peak was NOT serotonin at all.  I believe the initial formulation was probably a desperate attempt to get viable data, but after it was discovered, they should have been willing to report the discrepancy.  

I had the opportunity to report them, and I didn't.  I feel like that was a mistake.  Today, I have made a decision that I will expose corruption.  The goal is to do it in the most elegant way.  What will cause the most positive outcome?  What will most likely result in positive change?  This is my charge, this is God's will for my life.  Believe me, I am not overjoyed at the prospect.  Nonetheless, I feel compelled by something greater than myself to step onto this path.  I wonder where it will lead me?