Maine Doesn’t Need Doctors
This is NOT a piece about abortion. I’ve been writing op-eds for 16 years and have thus far avoided that topic. I know what I think about it, and I’m sure you do too. Our views are probably pretty similar. And if they’re not, for purposes of this column, I don’t care. So before this gets hijacked off into yelling between opposing camps and belief flag planting, I repeat: this is NOT an essay about abortion.
This is about another mask being ripped off of politicians and the society that creates them, in terms of how they view the medical profession. Physicians are dispensable, we are optional, and if we can’t be enslaved, we can be cast off, destroyed, or sidestepped. Maine’s Governor Janet Mills has signed into law a bill that will go into effect in September, designed to widen the state’s access to abortions. The law will allow non-physicians, which is to say nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and certified midwives, which is to say LELT’s, to perform abortions. What was once considered a surgical procedure so potentially dangerous that had to be gotten out of back-alleys is now simple and safe enough to be performed by non-surgeons. “‘These health care professionals are trained in family planning, counseling and abortion procedures, the overwhelming majority of which are completed without complications, Mills said.” Apparently this follows a California law passed in 2013 that allows the same.
The bill stipulates expanded authorization based on proper training. But a state that just elevated non-physicians to surgeons should have no trouble moving the goalposts as the nor’easters dictate.
“This law will allow women to receive the care they need from a provider they trust and eliminate the financial and logistical hurdles they face today”, says Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon.
So cheaper, faster, and presumably happier. Sepsis should only be a problem if 911 is dialed, and then the OB/GYN can fix things right up because hey, that’s what they’re trained to do. And as access to trained orthopedists diminishes, it should be no trouble or concern for well-trained ortho PA’s to do routine hip replacements. A sharp NP who has been at the cardiologist’s side for a few years should know the right meds, and hell, pushing dye through a catheter isn’t really that hard.
Medical students worried about paying back student loans should invest in CVS stock, which is going to skyrocket when LASIK and other routine surgeries are authorized in the Minute Clinics.
Get our awesome newsletter by signing up here. We don’t give your email out and we don’t spam you.
There are no words. Non-medical nitwits permitting non-physicians to perform medical procedures. Lovely. Our role as physicians will be to correct the inevitable errors that will occur because this governor and those of her ilk never bothered to ask what would happen when there is negligence and/or malpractice–by those untrained in medicine.
Not sure why any parent would support their child picking medicine as a career in this day and age. Such an effing joke. I hope my kids go into trades
And to top it all off, the Maine Medical Association, which takes physicians’ money promising to be their biggest advocate, ENDORSED this horrible bill.
why I left the MMA they stopped protecting physicians long ago…..