It is very easy these days to get crushed between the gears of achieving medical targets, trying to offer the best care in the shortest time to ensure you see enough patients without sacrificing the quality of the care given, family , personal life issues, your own health, medical bureaucracy and the ever interfering politics at the facility and the industry at large.
As well put forward by one renowned surgeon Dr.Atul Gawande , our medical system , when I mean “our” I mean the medical system around the world and not any one country in particular , needs healing. The doctors, allied health professionals, political leaders, support groups and patients need to and take a step back to get a bird’s eye view of where we are heading with all this.
Today we have a very overburdened national health system in countries that offer medical care for free, Extreme extortion in countries where it is privatized , and the number of people dying each day from medical negligence and unnecessary procedures are on the rise.
Most medical centers are moving into a medical mall concept where you come to get a remedy for a small problem but walk out with a bill 10 times larger than what you had anticipated, more often because of unnecessary tests that are ordered to ensure the attending physician reaches his/her target for the month. Switch the roles around and would you do what that doctor did?
Perhaps, because you might not have a job in a month’s time if you don’t hit those targets.
Is this what medicine has become? Is this how medicine is going to be?
Who do we hold accountable?
Watch this talk by Dr.Atul Gawande where he resonates the same feelings.
