It’s easy to get caught up in the frustration, the bad experiences, the horror stories that flood our social media feeds about doctors, medical interventions, and Western medicine.
My principal thought regarding doctors is that they seem willing to pretend that if I follow their instructions I can live forever, but I’ve known that’s not true since I was 8 years old. And like many of us I have my own thoughts as to what life is worth living and what I still want in my life. When I was contemplating university life, I was told that medical schools deliberately would not enroll every qualified applicant because that would increase the number of available doctors and reduce their ability to demand higher fees for their time. I don’t really know if that was true then or now, but it was a behavior I recognized from my reading about medieval guilds which controlled who and how many could practice a specific trade with assurance of a good income versus allowing in anyone who wanted to practice that craft and possibly create too many craftsmen for too little pay.
I've known enough doctors personally, professionally (as a hospital chaplain) and as a patient, to know that what you're saying is true.
But what of the role of HMOs, which seem to be a blight on American humanity? What of the doctors whom HMOs effectively blackmail into withholding treatment - even life-saving treatment? #MoralInjury must be high in a medical profession where HMO power and control quashes the yearning of good doctors to provide, not only health care, but also life care, to be a human face for thousands of patients whose only chance to meet them is when disease or trauma, inelegant and indifferent, strike them down.
My principal thought regarding doctors is that they seem willing to pretend that if I follow their instructions I can live forever, but I’ve known that’s not true since I was 8 years old. And like many of us I have my own thoughts as to what life is worth living and what I still want in my life. When I was contemplating university life, I was told that medical schools deliberately would not enroll every qualified applicant because that would increase the number of available doctors and reduce their ability to demand higher fees for their time. I don’t really know if that was true then or now, but it was a behavior I recognized from my reading about medieval guilds which controlled who and how many could practice a specific trade with assurance of a good income versus allowing in anyone who wanted to practice that craft and possibly create too many craftsmen for too little pay.
Brilliant and as always beautifully articulated❣️
I've known enough doctors personally, professionally (as a hospital chaplain) and as a patient, to know that what you're saying is true.
But what of the role of HMOs, which seem to be a blight on American humanity? What of the doctors whom HMOs effectively blackmail into withholding treatment - even life-saving treatment? #MoralInjury must be high in a medical profession where HMO power and control quashes the yearning of good doctors to provide, not only health care, but also life care, to be a human face for thousands of patients whose only chance to meet them is when disease or trauma, inelegant and indifferent, strike them down.