Respect by Ted Bacharach MD (retired)
Long ago physicians were respected members of society. Benjamin Rush M.D. was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and did quite a few phlebotomies on George Washington (probably not too helpful). The physicians were knowledgeable but had few effective remedies and often did little good. Over quite a few years physicians became considerably more effective. It appears that the respect physicians are able to generate is inversely proportional to the effectiveness of their treatments. Almost all adverse outcomes seem to be blamed on the present day physician. I suspect “malpractice” was not in the vocabulary before the last 100 years.
The more “good” physicians are able do, the more is expected of them.
Good point! But I believe , that physicians respect is inversely proportional to quantity of the doctors, not their quality.This line of thoughts become even more complicated and need to be explained why there is inverse relationship between the quality and quantity.