'The Nurse at Baker Hospital' uncovers a medical scam
Jocelyn Cullity’s new novel, "The Nurse at Baker Hospital," is set in Eureka Springs, in the Ozarks, in 1939. The Great Depression has hit Arkansas hard, and especially Eureka Springs, which had been an expensive resort, a spa where wealthy patients went for the waters and the fresh air. But now, it is a boomtown gone bust. The biggest hotel there has been converted to a hospital, specializing in cancer treatment. The Baker Hospital has no modesty about its achievements. A huge banner hangs outside announcing “Cancer Is Conquered.” It is always a good idea to be skeptical of premature declarations of “Mission accomplished.” But the hospital PR people and Norman Baker, the self-proclaimed genius and director, are confident and contemptuous of treatments for cancer other than theirs. Baker has a high-wattage radio program like that of the anti-Semitic, pro-fascist radio priest Father Charles Coughlin who, at his height, had 30 million listeners out of an American population of 120 million. Baker’s radio show, however, is not political. More: 'The Foursome' reveals the lives of famous twins | DON NOBLE He promotes his very profitable hospital and denounces conventional medicine. The American Medical Association, he says, is the “American Mummy
