Oh, By The Way

CNN has some deal with a plastic surgeon named Anthony Youn.  He is a plastic surgeon in metro Detroit who wrote a book called “In Stitches,” a humorous memoir about growing up Asian-American and becoming a doctor.  He had a huge PR company push that book out to the masses (they even paid a little money to have an ad on this blog at one time).  And he now gets to have a column with a big media company.  Everyone wants to be the funny doctor, I guess.  His piece on CNN.com about blaming the patients for long waits at the doctor’s office is, well, interesting.  I mean he makes some valid points but there is something that bugs me about it.   Now I know I have some plastic surgeon followers of this blog so this may piss you off.  Here is my issue with Dr. Youn.  Don’t talk about your life as a plastic surgeon as if you were in the trenches of medicine.    Dude, you chose your field for the lifestyle and money.  Yes, you trained many years and you still want to help people.  I get that.  There is nothing wrong with what you do and you are very much needed but please don’t pretend you know what it is like to be a grunt seeing the amount of patients (with complications) that we primary care docs do.   Dr. Youn, you are not some regular doc.   Even if you bought your way on to CNN, you can’t have it both ways.