Health policy experts have never been shy about their antagonism towards doctors.
The focus now appears to be on physician pay, with the Washington Post’sSteven Pearlstein, for one, continuing his anti-physician columns. Derek Thompson, over at The Atlantic (via @AllergyNotes), continues the assault, with a recent blog entry wondering if doctors deserve to be paid less.
Furthermore, many health policy experts bring out the tired statistic comparing American physician salaries with those abroad. The problem is that these are not apples-to-apples comparisons. Both the cost of medical school and malpractice insurance are exponentially higher Stateside. Fully subsidize medical school and bring malpractice premiums down to the levels of other countries first, before talking about tackling doctors’ pay.
Until then, comparing physician salaries with those in Europe is a largely meaningless exercise, and only serves to expose many health wonks’ innate contempt for the medical profession.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
Like most of you, I’m continuing to watch the events unfold in Iran via Twitter and YouTube. Not surprisingly, given the escalating violence, doctors and nurses are caught in the crossfire. This video was posted on YouTube on June 16th. One woman who I’m guessing is a nurse is showing a sign that says that 8 people were martyred. Toward the end of the clip the young man (whose voice breaks down many times) is saying that he witnessed the brutal beating of women and children. He speculates that the attackers were Lebanese Hezbollah. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish.
This story really upset me because I work with medical students at UGH (Undisclosed Government Hospital), and because I have children who are the same age as these victims. The eye witnesses reports come from medical students who hid when Iranian militia and police raided a Tehran University dormitory in the middle of the night. Hat tip to Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post. As we witness history, we will continue to witness the murder of innocent people.
“At the same time, Iran’s Interior Ministry ordered a probe into an attack late Sunday night on Tehran University students in a dormitory reported to have left several students dead and many more injured or arrested. Students say it was carried out by Islamic militia and police. Iran’s English-language Press TV said the ministry urged Tehran’s governor’s office to identify those involved. Iran’s influential speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, condemned the attack.
Students’ Web sites reported mass resignations by Tehran University professors outraged over the incident. One medical student said he and his roommate blocked their door with furniture and hid in the closet when they heard the militia’s motorcycles approaching. He heard the militia breaking down doors, and then screams of anguish as students were dragged from their beds and beaten violently.
When he came out after the militia had left, friends and classmates lay unconscious in dorm rooms and hallways, many with chest wounds from being stabbed or bloody faces from blows to their heads, he said. The staff of the hospital where the wounded students were taken, Hazrat Rasoul Hospital, was so shocked that they went on strike for two hours, standing silently outside the gate in their white medical uniforms.”
I want to ask you which would be more important: If all of the doctors in the country somehow disappeared or all the trial lawyers in America somehow disappeared? We can live without medical care, but we cannot live without justice.
— Gerry Spence
With our dwindling primary care force (and many PCPs considering leaving medicine), it looks like Gerry might get to test his hypothesis sooner than he thinks.
h/t to Dr. Wes for finding this astonishing quote.
Background:
Lawyer Gerry Spence, who was awarded the CAOC Lifetime Achievement Award, told conference attendees that legal representation is essential, even more important than health care, for people.
“We have to redefine who we are: We are the most important people in America,” Spence said. “There is no other profession in America that fights for freedom, that fights for what America is about, that fights for justice for ordinary people.”
You may have seen this cartoon here before… but it did go for the highest bid (of the two I auctioned) at the National Press Club yesterday so I thought I’d make it this week’s Friday Funny. Enjoy!
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