Quote of the Week
I think that people are people and all of us want to feel appreciated. This goes beyond the point I was making about doctors being disrespected. This is not about superficial ego crap. Forget the fact that the unholy matrimony between doctors and hospitals (who employ them) is a terrible thing for the healthcare system. We, me included, jumped into bed with them and now suffer the consequences for it. That is why 40% of us were forgotten on Doctors’ Day. It is sad but the truth is that we need to take care of this ourselves. I think that doctors need to appreciate each other, their staffs and their families a lot more. In that light, here is a quote, first seen in a Dale Carnegie book:
I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer not neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
My parents gave me a very special hand drawn calligraph of this quote upon graduation from med school many years ago. The quote was attributed to Stephen Grellet and hangs in my office. John Parkin M.D.
You’ve put a very good issue on the table few people talk about. The politicization of medicine by big business and the government has made it very difficult for physicians to really support other physicians if they are part of the machine.
One of the consequences of the “unholy matrimony between doctors and hospitals” is doctors eating other doctors. There. I’ve said it. It’s real. It’s tragic. And it probably has more to do with the demise of good health care in this country than any other factor.
If physicians are really going to appreciate each other, they will need to figure out how to get off the political steamroller and survive the exit.