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> I went into medicine knowing that I will have to sacrifice much for the sake of my patients. What I am realising is that today in modern medicine, a doctor is

by nojvek 3y ago

> I went into medicine knowing that I will have to sacrifice much for the sake of my patients. What I am realising is that today in modern medicine, a doctor is just one of the many commodities in this complex industry. It’s no longer about the patient. It’s about the business of hospitals. Patient satisfaction officers, Theatre Utilisation officers, Patient Flow Coordinators. These are all business roles. I have to yet to meet one person who says American Healthcare is wonderful, fairly priced and efficient. It seems private Equity and mergers are slowly juicing out the system - the doctors, patients, nurses. Its a sad state of world that we don’t allow pilots to overwork because our lives depend on it, but we allow doctors to overwork and don’t count patients dying due to them being overworked.

m463 3y ago
You remind me of an old article I read: https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines probably not a 1:1 comparison to health care, but the conclusion was: > a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline I kind of wonder if there could be a way for doctors to start a hospital and run it top-down from first principles. Kind of like good engineering companies that were started and run by engineers.
d0gsg0w00f 3y ago
Re pilots vs doctors: pilots would be the equivalent of elective surgery, i.e., it can wait. There are so few doctors that getting a tired doctor is "better than nothing" as you have a greater chance of survival if you get mediocre care vs no care at all and certain death.
- nojvek 3y ago
  Right. And we have so few doctors because we artificially cap the number of doctors instead of letting free market dictate how many doctors we can have.
- rtaylorgarlock 3y ago
  Ironically, the reason my wife, a physician, gets to see her dad, a private pilot, most often is when he's flying medical teams to harvest organs from organ donors. 'Agreed' to your points, at least in part ;)

by nojvek 3y ago

m463 3y ago

You remind me of an old article I read: https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines probably not a 1:1 comparison to health care, but the conclusion was: > a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline I kind of wonder if there could be a way for doctors to start a hospital and run it top-down from first principles. Kind of like good engineering companies that were started and run by engineers.

d0gsg0w00f 3y ago

Re pilots vs doctors: pilots would be the equivalent of elective surgery, i.e., it can wait. There are so few doctors that getting a tired doctor is "better than nothing" as you have a greater chance of survival if you get mediocre care vs no care at all and certain death.

nojvek 3y ago
Right. And we have so few doctors because we artificially cap the number of doctors instead of letting free market dictate how many doctors we can have.
rtaylorgarlock 3y ago
Ironically, the reason my wife, a physician, gets to see her dad, a private pilot, most often is when he's flying medical teams to harvest organs from organ donors. 'Agreed' to your points, at least in part ;)