Quote:
Originally Posted by serenityseeker
The unfair and dangerous part of this is that anyone is able to write anything inflamatory about any physician as their "opinion". As in all other parts of life there are unreasonable people that be come disgruntled for unreasonable reasons. Defaming a physician, even if its only your "opinion" is hurtful and dangerous, and potentially damaging to professionals that deal with difficult people in some of the most difficult circumstances life has to offer. Many of these patients may in fact have emotional problems that affect their ability to give or receive communication normally, or to honestly and accurately portray the situations they deal with. Who is going to be able to tell the difference?
Should we all be held accountable? Certainly, just as the patients should (non compliance, obesity, smoking, missing appointments to just name a few). Medicine is difficult enough and has become too much of a battlefield as it is today without having to deal with sometimes wild, unfounded, and misplaced accusations. There are accepted channels to go through to deal with complaints regarding physicans, from actually sitting down to voice your concerns with the doctor to speaking with hospitals to going to the state medical board.
Let's try to remember that physicians are human too, and sometimes may have an off day and a "lousy" attitude. Our parents die, our children become sick, our patients die despite our greatests attempts, we carry the weight of a lot of peoples problems in our hearts and souls every day.
You want to "fight back"? Then do so in a fair and equitable way. Life in medicine is hard enough. Practicing today is a virtual minefield. Take a look at the statistics of the mass exodous from medicine that is gathering steam. I abhor medical professionals that do not have compassion, empathy and respect for their patients, I also know that this is a relative minority. Let's offer respect to those that sacrifice personal life and family every day for what they do, and avoid putting them in yet another defensless position.
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I could not agree more. I have unfortunately had to avail myself of the medical profession far more than most and I have nothing but gratitude to those physicians and others. If not for them, I would not be (1) walking, (2) seeing, and more important (3) alive.... How easy it is to complain about having to wait longer than expected when a physician may be dealing with an emergency and to CHOOSE not to understand the meaning of 'triage.' I was recently treated by an outstanding physician (I say that having had enough 'training' of my own) whom I overheard being threatened with a lawsuit by a loud, obnoxious patient who didn't like 'the news.' I could cite instances and more instances. No doubt there are those in the medical field with less personality than we would like, but that's not what I'm there for!
In another thread I recently wrote about the PA who took a hand that looked like ground beef and transformed it back into a hand following an accident in December; I was in The Villages Hospital ER for SIX hours, during which time he was either with me or constantly running back in to check on me. I learned recently that his submitted charge was just under $500, from which the insurance company promptly subtracted over $400, meaning that he was paid less than $100 for his services. As I pointed out, this is less than our oldest son, a grocery clerk, earns in six hours. The control the government has given to insurance companies makes life extremely difficult not just for us as patients but for medical practitioners in general, just another issue that's part of their lives.
I also served as a Hospice volunteer for many years and was in fact instrumental in bringing the Hospice movement into our rural NYS region. The level of care and compassion on the part of physicians and others dealing with terminal patients and their families was beyond touching.
I would not be thrilled to sign the waiver which started this thread, but to an extent, given the power of the Internet, I can understand where it's coming from....