Atlas Shrugged Hits It Out of the Park
It is amazing how prophetic this book written in 1957 was. In it, Dagny Taggart, the protagonist of the story, has come across a group of men who have quit their jobs. She asks a prominent surgeon who disappeared a few years ago why.
She looked at the others. “Please tell me your reasons,” she said, with a faint stress of firmness in her voice, as if she were taking a beating, but wished to take it to the end.
“I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only ‘to serve.’ That a man who’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, published 1957. Part three, chapter 2.
Let this sink in for a bit.
Reminds me of the 1959 British book, “Honour A Physician” by Philip Auld in which he basically spelled out why the National Health Service could not survive. Yet it still exists but it is not fit for purpose & complaints abound.
Always admired Dr. Hendricks among others. Today an LPN in training in our clinic quit. She said she was going to lunch, then emailed the “clinic manager” her resignation. Apparently she found that the clinic was in general unprofessional and disrespectful. Examples were not given. The “clinic manager” is going to huddle with us to see what we did wrong. The answer is clear but it took Ayn Rand hundreds of pages to explain why.
The commentary I read here strikes me as similar to what is made by law enforcement personnel; No respect of personal boundaries, expectation of unlimited service, inadequate pay for value of work preformed, no government support, exploited by the legal and insurance industry, professionally judgement stymied by the health insurance industry, best practices ignored by administration, etc…. All I can say is thank you Doctors for your servicees.
The ballad of Dr. Thomas Hendricks. Based AF.
Sad to think one must give up one’s passion in order to retain his freedom.
I remember 25 years ago driving home from the emergency room. I was not paid for taking call. The patient as typical was uninsured. In this particular case the patient worked for a company that offered insurance but he did not want to pay the $100 employee portion per month. He instead spent more than that on cigarettes and beer. I had to stop for gas. The sign on the gas pump said theft of more than $15 of gasoline is a crime.
I wondered how theft of medical services was not a crime. Either by the person who never planned to pay and in fact had chosen not to pay. Or by the state who demanded I provide those services for free. Or by the hospital who demanded I provide call coverage for free.
Flash forward another 20 years and now I have nurse practitioners providing many of the same treatments I do with far less training and no requirements to take call.
I retired this month and patients asked why I wanted to retire. I just smiled and said it’s time. I wanted to say I wanted to retire for 30 years.
The concept of theft of services you delineate so well. $15 theft can get you a misdemeanor but thousands and thousands of dollars of unpaid bills are nothing because we are to take it, because we are Doctors. And as I have stated before, Now that you are retired, you need to consider blogging.
Profound and chilling.