Monday, September 15, 2008

Perversion of Rewards

I have been working at a hospital now as a doctor for 3 months and I already want to kill people. I guess I understand where Kevorkian started. But I get ahead of myself and should explain my reasoning.
I as a physician am required by law to treat patients who do not want to be treated nor pay for the services. And should I refuse to treat said patients I can have license revoked, and am open to lawsuits. I treat patients who use medical care and time, who have zero intention of following medical advice. I have patients who it 5 minutes of Internet research, know more about their "illness" and "treatment than I do . I can prescribe a treatment to save a persons life, and I am responsible to make sure the patient takes the treatment, for if I do not and some adverse event takes place, I am liable, not the patient.
So if any of this doesn't make sense and if you were required to do these things, would that first paragraph start to makes sense?
The next thing I would say if I was being told this is well...quit, no one is keep you there so quit complaining. And I fully agree with you (or myself in this instance), for as of next year I will never see a patient again, well maybe for one month a year but they will be sedated by the time I get there, so its ok.
I bring this up not simply to complain but, to really stress how health care, and its treatments are not a right, they are privilege. And the people that provide this are skill professionals (some of them anyway) and not charity workers or babysitters (even though we are many times required to be). So making health care required to be carried by all, and payed for by all is ridiculous. All that does is make health care cost burdens carried by the responsible i.e the ones that take the treatments and take care of their bodies (thereby costing less in the system) and makes them pay for the irresponsible (i.e the alcoholic who continues to drink despite the fact that he just vomited his weight in blood, or the diabetic who just lost his foot who continues to eat krispy creme).
Naturally as humans, as animals for that matter we respond to rewards, and what universal health care does is misconstrue the rewards and punish the good. But then again isn't that what our current government does, so not surprisingly these policies are working to come to fruition.

Cheers,
Zachary

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