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| High pay | 62% | 282 votes | Total: 452 votes | |
| Healing | 38% | 170 votes |
High pay
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Add to FavoritesIn American society today, patient care and the Hippocratic Oath have all but vanished into the haze of big business, virtually lost in a mountainous stack of referrals, insurance forms and billing statements. The days of house calls and caring doctors has gone the way of the dinosaur as the art of medicine has transformed into assembly line, drug company driven specialties and profit. Make no mistake, money is the root of all evil. It is all about the money.
The once heralded standard that doctors swore by, the Oath, says, "I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery." It is a sad commentary on our health system that far too many times today, in staggering numbers, the doctors who take this oath give in to the allure of drug company incentives and bow to the pressure of powerful insurance conglomerates that only see numbers on a page, not an ailing patient lying sick in a hospital in need of a denied treatment.
You might ask, where does he get this low opinion and what is the source of his anger. I will be glad to share that with you.
My wife, 38, has been sick for more than five years now. We now know that she has been sick because a careless surgeon, performing what was likely a needless procedure, severed the Vagus nerve during a gall bladder removal and basically "killed" the lower half of her stomach. For 5 years now my wife has been unable to take anything by mouth without throwing it back up. She has not taken even a single drink of water without having it come back minutes later. She throws up EVERYTHING. Imagine yourself throwing up 15 or 20 times a day for 5 years, or having a feeding tube at her age. She has lost half her body weight and does not have the energy to live normally. It is possible that she never will.
In the endless barrage of doctor visits and hospital stays she was diagnosed with countless conditions, underwent the same tests over and over and over and has taken thousands upon thousands of dollars of medicines. The most agonizing for her was being told by doctor after doctor that it was all in her head and that she needed psychiatric treatment. That is an absolute in American healthcare today. If the doctor can't treat it and cure it, it must be in the patient's head. Nevertheless, they will suck every penny they can out of the patient's resources before making this determination. That is the cold, hard fact. Money motivates.
Like everything else though, there are always exceptions. We have ours. A doctor who still lives by the oath and its charge to "act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help." Dr. Andrew Minigutti, in Dallas, Texas has been our ray of hope and proof that doctors still exist that give everything they have to see their patients experience health. His care has gone far beyond his office walls and he has become so much more than just a doctor. He has dedicated himself to making her well again and has done more by far for us as a family than all the other doctors combined. Most importantly, he listens. To Dr. Minigutti, we have never been a number on a chart, an insurance liability or a waste of his time. I dare say all of his patients feel the same way. Quite simply, he is motivated by the desire to help those he serves. To my wife and I, and our whole family, he will always be our Top Gun.
There needs to be more doctors like Dr. Minigutti. For all of our sakes, I wish there was.
Learn more about this author, Edward Earl.
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Healing
There is a certain love one gains from doing something. For Doctors, it is the adoration of the human body, and the compulsion to fix what ever may be hurting it's intimate being. I may be spouting pure rubbish, but as the partner of a Doctor, i know what they go through, and i know exactly why they go into the job. Those who are in it for the money, are those who do not preform well, and barely make it through the first rounds of training. The ones who are in it for the money, fail.
To be a Doctor, in this day and age, takes guts. You have to be made of steel. Even then steel that has been strengthened, and made so tough that one could not melt, break, or damage it even with all the worlds most powerful equipments and flames. Being a Doctor involves you to become one of the most fearless people in the world. Why? Because people hate you. People don't know enough about the basics of medicine, that people expect you to get things right first time. When that doesn't happen, people sue you. You lose your licence if it's bad enough.
The money will never cover the torment of having that hanging over you with every diagnosis there is to be made. It'll never ever solve the problems, because it's always there. Medicine is a job that requires the most intellegent of people to do it. To make ethical decisions every day. Ones that cost lives. Of course, people are so used to Doctors being there, they barely consider all the downsides of the job. They also by far outwiegh the positives.
The positives are, from what i have gathered, healing people, doing something new everyday, meeting people, and of course the money. The negatives? Let me start the list. The stress, confusion when one cannot solve something, the constant fear of doing something wrong and being sued, resulting in the loss of doing what you love. The stupidly long hours, the fact you can't see your loved ones enough or as much as you would like. The sacrifices one has to make can destroy you. The possibility of contracting the deadly viruses, bacteria, or getting sick yourself. You are constantly at risk of death. It's as high risk a job as deep sea fishing. It may not be as violent, but the risks are there.
It's made clear in the training. If you can't cut it, you get out. Healing people takes up your life, and the money isn't ever enough. The money can't make up for all the time lost with family, all the experiences, the watching of your babies first steps. The panic one goes through when a relative gets sick. Money can not make up for the senarios of what might happen to the loved one. Even if it's something as simple as a 'cold'.
There is nothing, nothing in the world, according to my partner, that can make up for all the hell he goes through to do the job he loves other than to watch a patient he'd been helping and healing walk out those hospital doors.
Money. Does not count for everything. It will help you live life but not make it.
Learn more about this author, Amelia Bray.
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