Myth. & Modern Medicine (CNTD) 4/14/2021 8:13:11 AM
If you need to call back regarding a question you might get a nurse or another physician after hours of leaving a message as the doctor who saw you might be off. These days you can text your doctor. But is it the same as talking in person?
In hospitals there are 'patient advocates' who help you with your 'problem' or 'guide' you through treatment. There are 'length of stay' checkers so you do not overstay an hour beyond the day/days allotted for your diagnosis. If you have an infection it is mandated that a infectious disease specialist see you. When an antibiotic is prescribed a pharmacist checks on the appropriateness of it. You would think that your doctor knows how and with what to treat your infection. The reason given is that medicine has become too complex for one person to implement treatment. So if this is taken to it's extreme your doctor will just admit you then a bevy of other people will descend on you depending on your illness. Many other people are there who are between you and your doctor, I have mentioned only a few. There is an old adage that 'the more parts in a thing the more things can go wrong'. What was simple in medicine now has a lot of parts. They will and do go wrong.
The complexity of modern medicine is blamed if you question what is going on. Fragmented care is now the norm. When and if something goes wrong no one seems to be in charge. It doesn't have to be so, but what was commonsense has given way to excuses to avoid responsibility and work.
When doctors were in solo practice or even in small groups they handled patient care without complaint, had control of their practice, enjoyed the rapport with patient and her family, and all were relatively happy. Now doctors are mostly employees, work in large groups, work lesser hours, make more money and by and large are not happy. You hear of 'burn out', early retirement and higher rates of suicide. I had not heard the word burn-out when I practiced only a few years ago.
The patients are not happy as they see many obstacles in seeing their physician, from getting an appointment rushed visits, impersonal service paying astronomical amounts in health insurance to nobody seeming to be in charge.
The concept of healer and patient has been stood on its head after several summersaults. Medicine has been made into a commodity by people who are in charge, pretend to know it but have no clue that it will never be machine-like and in trying to 'organize' and systemize it they have nearly destroyed it, with some help from misguided physicians, some of whom never had the opportunity to see a patient as a human, to feel the special bond of healer and healed. (tbcntd)
