Re: Dethrone the Doctors
- From: "george conklin" <nilknocgeo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 10:19:32 -0400
"pettifogger" <bluerhymer@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:c810bdffc4763bc964912c703d8c0cf9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The sun shines on their successes, and the earth hides their failures.
- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Dethrone the Doctors
The royal occupation of physician has too long enjoyed the double
standards of law and policy.They cover for each other like a secret
brotherhood
My sister is about to undergo surgery for lymphatic and lung cancer. She
is 43. Therefore, I was drawn to two stories in the news yesterday about
doctors. Political focus should also be drawn onto these two stories. They
are, Medical Boards Let Physicians Practice Despite Drug Abuse and After
Stealing Drugs, Doctor Goes to Rehab. It is high time to dethrone these
kings of life and death.
Who wants their name associated with bad mouthing doctors? Let's face it,
we are all going to need one eventually. Would any of us feel secure being
grudged by the medical community at a time of need for medical attention?
Regardless, The laws of the United States are constitutionally to apply to
all persons equally. When Doctors steal drugs for their personal use and
are caught and reported to the Medical review boards, it is criminal that
those peer review boards would respond by telling the thief they must
enter rehabilitation to avoid other penalties.
This is illegal for a couple reasons. First, failure by the review boards
to report this conduct to police, constitutes aiding and abetting a
criminal in evasion of justice. Second, it is illegal because its is
unequal application of the law. If a waitress is caught stealing drugs,
she will go to jail. But if a doctor is caught for the same crime, they
get help and assistance and never appear before the justice system.
Finally, it should be a crime to permit an illegal drug using doctor to
continue to carry the responsibility for life and death over their
patients without their patients knowing the facts.
But there is an even darker side. Insurance premiums, tort reform and
spiraling health care costs are all affected by these news stories. As
Congress reviewed the causes for medical malpractice, they uncovered an
interesting phenomena. A large number of malpractice suits were brought
again and again against the same doctors. Could that phenomena be
explained by drug and alcohol abusing doctors, in fact, guilty of
malpractice? Oh no, say the conservatives who need malpractice costs to be
the result of fraudulent claims in order to get their reform passed. Thus,
they sweep the actual malpractice, perpetrated upon the innocent public,
under the rug for political reasons. And finally, if these alcohol and
drug abusing physicians were held accountable and removed from practice,
would not malpractice suits drop and the adherent costs also drop? Why
this cover-up continues is readily apparent.
It is plain to see that once again, putting doctors in charge of peer
review for physician malfeasance is an idea that just does not work. And
Americans are asked to give up their rights to sue these criminal doctors
in class actions in the name of controlling health care costs. Congress
did not investigate the legitimacy of the large number of medical law
suits filed each year, nor did they investigate why it is the same doctors
name reappear in suit after suit. So, not only are the peer review boards
failing to represent the consumer's interests, but, Congress is complicit
in this action as well.
They cover for each other like a secret brotherhood, and we the consumers
of medical care in America get to play the lottery as to whether we will
live or die at the hands of competent or incompetent Royalty called
physicians. Doctors are not priests, kings, or saints. And somebody needs
to start holding them to account to the same laws and punishments that the
rest of us are subjected to. To allow doctors to have a favored status in
the eyes of the law subverts our Constitution and breeds contempt amongst
the population for experts and expertise. This cannot be healthy for our
nation's future nor our own inevitable dependence upon a doctor at some
point in our lives.
Posted by David R. Remer
Well, the AMA did set up the laws, and they enforce them too. However, what
would help is public notice of things like hospital infection rates.
.
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