When Is Enough…Enough?
With front page headlines, news-talk radio shows, and the blog-o-sphere on constant-chatter-mode opining incessantly about the state of our health care system, honestly, I know full well you don’t want to read yet another blathering-bloggers bunch of bull…but…
I am in a quandary, and, I am having a real tug-of-war with a rope of thoughts that are beginning to give me a mental-fray-down! I have never been able to reconcile with the construct that our healers ((doctors)) would use healing as a motive for profit-making. The notion that a doctor would treat a patient, or would/could be motivated for any reason, other than the will-to-heal, is so foreign and upsetting to me. I know, I KNOW, I live with fanciful ideals, but surely this must make you a tad-bit uncomfortable too??
It was necessary for me to see 7 doctors before one of them would offer me a solution other than surgery… this is very telling, and I am beginning to feel an uncomfortable-wonder!! I do believe our Age Of Greed has poisoned the last bastion involving the innocence of altruistic work… ie.,our doctors in practice!! A diamond-in-the-rough exception, however, is Dr. Suzanne LeBlang. In fact, Dr. LeBlang is practicing her dream ~~ her skills are world-reknowned, her compassion and wonderfully caring way are totally trust-inducing, AND… she is a salaried employee! Hmmmmm…!
It was only a generation ago that the AMA guidelines forbade doctors to: advertise or market themselves; sell any drugs that they prescribed; own a financial interest in a lab, hospital or in machinery for the purpose of performing tests. In fact,way back in those dark ages, a doctors’ sole source of income was in the arena of patient care…sigh!
Now doctors are exploring all kinds of new avenues for profit-making-while healing! Market-driven medicine is a bankrupt idea, both literally and figuratively!
Financial incentives are exploding with more more MORE ~~ more procedures performed, more tests performed, more questionable abnormalities found, more surgeries incurred, and more advertising to the “well patient” so as to find something to bank on! The medical-industrial-complex has ARRIVED, and ((gosh I am nauseous typing this)) our healers are holding the reigns!
Our doctors are perversely interwoven with pharmaceutical companies, hospital and teaching medical centers, bio-tech companies, surgical centers,diagnostic centers and manufacturers of medical devices. Am I just too Polly Anna in thinking that this medical-industrialized-complex and, that profiteering from the suffering sick, is just not KOSHER??
As my memory hearkens back to those “my-way-or-the-highway” doctors that I visited when seeking a solution to my fibroid, I am feeling deeply disturbed to be pondering in such a distrustful manner. BUT, then why was surgery their only offering?? Was it a way to make more money at my expense? Certainly there were options for treating a fibroid other than the good ol’ slice-and-dice! I just can’t believe that this is the state of affairs with which we and our health care system have come to. Pitiful, just pitiful.
Certainly, having all healthcare professionals on a salary rather than on an incentive-based payroll, does make moral and ethical sense, and probably would make monetary sense in the long run too. But how do we get there?? I am not sure! BUT.. I do know, that the illusion of acquiring more and more stuff ((abundance)) AND, that that will somehow add to you becoming meaningfully happy, must be the first paradigm shift in a greed-is-good world. When we can honestly say, “ENOUGH is ENOUGH,” then, we just may be on the REAL road to recovery.
Oh, Wendy-the-Wonderwoman … You are sooo on target with this. Having relied on military medicine for nearly 30 years now, I have to concur with what you say (although I seem to get myself into trouble trying to convey my opinion on FB!). I had a very serious health event a few years ago, and my “socialized” military-medicine care was second to none. It was immediate, dedicated and thorough. I read a lot of the blogs out there of people who had the same condition I had, and I could only feel sorrow for what they were going through, i.e., the insurance companies especially being the thorns in the sides of successful treatment plans and market-driven medical practices. You are so correct as you write about your Dr. LeBlang, who practices medicine for performing the skill of healing, NOT the greed of the $$. I see this all the time in the brilliant doctors, PA’s (yay, PA’s, of course!!!), nurses, etc. who are in the military: their paycheck is the same, regardless. That allows them to practice sound and thorough medicine — BECAUSE they’re not profit-driven, rather they are healing-driven. Granted, there are a few practioners in the military medicine system who just want to get through the payback service obligation period for their VERY expensive medical education so they can hit the civilian medical world by storm and make big bucks. But they generally weed themselves out early on, and generally don’t make good officers to begin with. I say, good riddance to bad baggage. Those who love what they do prevail in the military medical setting, and they are truly excellent at what they do. Too often, the media love to bash military medicine, but I can assure you, our wounded warriors (and healthy ones, and soldier families) are getting top-notch medical care. And these practioners are not allowed to accept freebies from drug company reps, etc., which makes a huge difference.
I just love you Wendy! You keep up your dedication and devotion. (hugs)