Ideology and interests
Saturday, March 21 2009
This post started as response to Kevin, MD, but his site won’t let me comment – so here we are.
In retrospect, the post he is responding to could be clearer. My point is that when a patient recognizes a physician has made a mistake and asks for a remedy, that physician often can no longer be trusted to work in the patient’s best interest. I have seen this first-hand: I have had a few awful physicians, who made grave errors in my care. Fortunately, I caught these errors before they cause significant harm – but once those errors were recognized, these physicians went into siege mode. I recognize that this “siege mentality” is partly a product of our tort system. But it’s too often simply a prideful physician refusing to admit error. Whatever the case, at that point I could no longer trust my physician to act in my best interests.
Meanwhile, our courts are set up so that attorneys have an incentive to work on behalf of injured patients. That mechanism is flawed, and often grossly unfair to physicians, but it is what we have got. Most attempts at tort reform would strip away that incentive, leaving patients with no one to work on their behalf. These reforms are more about punishing lawyers and protecting physicians than they are about helping patients; that’s not something I can get behind. Still, I think there is significant room for malpractice reform that helps physicians and patients, while leaving everyone’s rights intact. I pointed to one such solution in the above-linked post.
In general, I think physicians’ and patients’ interests are pretty well aligned, so I am not sure why Kevin thinks my “progessive ideology… inherently opposes the medical profession”. I have had many excellent physicians (and nurses and PAs), whose skill, expertise, and compassion have been crucial to me surviving an awful disease. I generally trust these professionals to act in my best interest, because we share the same goal – specifically, to help sick people live better lives. So while I am very much pro-patient, I don’t think patients’ and physicians’ interests are so irreconciliable that I must also be opposed to the medical profession. To the extent that I sound like a progressive ideologue, it is because I think progressives are offering the best ideas for health care reform that benefits patients (and physicians). As proof that progressive ideology does not inherently oppose the medical profession, let me point out that Kevin apparently doesn’t realize the research in Bob Doherty’s post was conducted under the auspices of the Herndon Alliance. Kevin and I may disagree about what policies will most benefit patients and physicians, but that doesn’t mean I am opposed to the medical profession.
