| Monday, April 24, 2006 |
| What Scares Doctors? |
This week's Time cover story, Q: What Scares Doctors? A: Being the Patient, is well worth a read. And it's not just doctors who are scared, it's people like me and other health care professionals who know enough about the inside workings of hospitals to realize the essential, and very real shortcomings of the US healthcare system. That in a country with perhaps the highest quality of health care available, "the best" is not only hard to define or measure, it's not readily available to everyone, no matter who you are, and how much you know about it.
While there are bad doctors practicing bad medicine who go undetected, that's not what scares other physicians the most. Instead, they have watched the system become deformed over the years by fear of litigation, by insurance costs, by rising competition, by billowing bureaucracy and even by improvements in technology that introduce new risks even as they reduce old ones. So doctors resist having tests done if they aren't absolutely sure they are needed. They weigh the advantages of teaching hospitals at which you're more likely to find the genius diagnostician vs. community hospitals where you may be less likely to bring home a nasty hospital-acquired infection. They avoid having elective surgery in July, when the new doctors are just starting their internships in teaching hospitals, but recognize that older, more experienced physicians may not be up to date on the best standards of care. Yep, that sums it up, but it only scratches the surface. Working in a hospital is kinda like working in a sausage factory. While the end product may be perfectly good, fresh, and appealing, you really don't want to know what actually went in to making it.
Perhaps the most important thing to know is that medicine is an imperfect process. People make mistakes, high tech machines, while providing us with more information, less invasively, and earlier in the course of treatment than ever before - are also fallible. Shit, unfortunately happens. There is still a very real risk to any procedure requiring general anesthesia, despite the advances in drugs and monitoring equipment. We lost a patient last week to a rare, but unavoidable side effect of anesthesia. It had nothing to do with his orthopedic surgery. He was otherwise healthy and 47. It happens. And that, is what doctors are afraid of. |
posted by Broadsheet @ 10:09 AM   |
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| 1 Editorial Opinions: |
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Honey, IMHO, doctors are money grubbing thieves that are more concerned about your insurance company´s ability to pay promptly and pay a lot than providing anyone with reasonable healthcare. They will order tests you don´t need to cover themselves from a suitcase, not worrying one iota about one´s ability to pay. Saying the system is a mess is an understatement.
The reason it is so easy to sue a doctor in Maryland is because the doctors´ have made sure there is no oversight. Med Chi is a joke. They reap what they sow.
Better to consult with a Shaman.
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Honey, IMHO, doctors are money grubbing thieves that are more concerned about your insurance company´s ability to pay promptly and pay a lot than providing anyone with reasonable healthcare. They will order tests you don´t need to cover themselves from a suitcase, not worrying one iota about one´s ability to pay. Saying the system is a mess is an understatement.
The reason it is so easy to sue a doctor in Maryland is because the doctors´ have made sure there is no oversight. Med Chi is a joke. They reap what they sow.
Better to consult with a Shaman.