“Money is honey, but health is wealth” should be the new norm.
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Emali: info@clodocacademy.com
As doctors we are blessed with the ability, the skill and the opportunity to make sure every patient gets what they need.
Somewhere along the line the administration got in the way.
Time with patients gave way to time with EHRs, with insurance companies, with trying to keep a business afloat. The need to “process” patients removed their humanity; they became statistics, cases, paychecks and no longer individuals, no longer human beings.
The suffering patient suffers more as they lose touch with their doctor.
Yet despite all the administration, despite all the bureaucracy, nothing has improved: medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S..
“People don’t just die from heart attacks and bacteria, they die from system-wide failings and poorly coordinated care,” Dr. Martin Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
We are here to help bridge the gap.
Procedure becomes routine, routine becomes unremarkable and we begin to lose that spark.
You didn’t become a doctor for the paperwork.
With around two thirds of your time taken up by it though, it might begin to feel like it. You’ve begun to feel burnt out, stressed by the clerical work and a distressed physician leads to distressed patients.
You’re not to blame, you are only human after all. You’re not alone either.
We have lost our way through no fault of our own. Just over 50%, over half, of physicians in the US have reported symptoms of burnout.
Not only does this affect patient healthcare, it forces us into a cycle where we are too worn down to improve conditions for both ourselves and the patient.
Let’s break the cycle.
We lose sight of the very purpose of our work. We forget to ask ourselves: What really matters?
Primum non nocere. Although not actually in the classical Hippocratic Oath, it’s usually quoted as its most important part: “First do no harm”.
The times have changed since Ancient Greece, and so has medicine and the oaths we take as doctors.
Today we may hear lines like “I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being” or “that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife”.
It’s this patient first, holistic side of medicine that is the difference between a physician and a good doctor, between a visit to a doctor and a visit to the family doctor.
A patient will never forget a good doctor.
The system is morally bankrupt. “Wealth is health” has become the industry’s motto.
Healthcare has become infested with corporate interest and patients are treated as cash cows.
There are many stories of unnecessary procedures and treatments from EEGs for headaches to an MRI scan for an unprecedented case of lower back pain.
62% of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical expenses. 72% of those filed from people with health insurance.
In a system where a family can become homeless because of something as unfortunate and unexpected as an illness, how many patients don’t seek treatment?
With almost 50,000 people dying every year due to lack of health insurance, is this system really in the interests of our nation’s health?
As doctors struggle to stay independent, as competition is driving surgeries out of business, as services and materials get more and more expensive, is the system viable?
How many people die because of expenses? Have we finally found the cost of a human life?
“Money is honey, but health is wealth” should be the new norm.
The stories are many and varied and all over the internet. A man who was charged $6500 for a five minute session to remove surgical pins from his finger and the insurance company refused to pay claiming it was “cosmetic”.
Another patient whose stomach pain wouldn’t leave for 6 hours and spent six hours at the ER; an antacid, some morphine and a CAT scan, radiology, ultrasound and lab tests later and they were billed over $12000. These are parents, carers, real people paying half their annual salary, or a whole year’s rent for a six hour visit.
We are only human, patients and doctors alike. Accidents happen, illnesses affect us all. Why are we paying so much, wasting so much and allowing our healthcare to be treated as a commodity at the expense of people’s welfare and very lives?
It’s time for change. Join us.
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