disgusted.

17Jun08

I just saw the dark side of medicine.

And frankly if I can’t change it, I don’t know if I want to be a part of it.

People who need help and can’t get it, people who don’t need help and get treated extra special, doctors who just don’t care and patients who just want someone to care.

It is truly disturbing, the way medicine has been twisted from a field of compassion and good intentions to a thing where the highest bidder wins, and if you have no money, too bad, you die.


Filed under: Lessons Learned, Medicine, The Health Care Mess, Things you don't learn in school   |  
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3 Responses to “disgusted.”  

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  1. 1 Christina on June 17, 2008 said:

    Yikes….I can relate to this one, also. I am planning on taking prereq courses starting in the fall, and maybe someday coming up with a definitive answer to the “should I go to med school or not?” question….currently my answer changes almost daily. I work in a large hospital as a spanish intepreter, so I pretty much see everything that goes on. And I love my job enough to stay here, and the field enough to be seriously considering med school, but…..wow, sometimes I am as disgusted as you are. (oh, yeah, and just imagine - as an interpreter, my patients are primarily immigrants, and therefore….NONE of them are the highest bidders!)

  2. 2 drwannabe on June 17, 2008 said:

    actually, I saw a patient yesterday that had metastatic cancer of the liver, he was denied chemo because he is illegally here and when they asked he did not lie about it. Why? because he couldn’t guarantee payment, but he was honest and willing to try to pay for it.
    I would much rather treat this patient than the thousands of people we treat that do not really need medical treatment.
    sickening.

  3. 3 Christina on June 19, 2008 said:

    Oh, wow…welcome to my world. I deal with that every day. That is my least favorite thing about the medical world…to have to tell someone, “Yes, of course we have everything we need to treat you, but we’re not going to do it because you’re not from here…you’re an “alien”…and you have no money, so.., well, sorry”. Ugh…it sucks.

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