GRAND SCHEMES

“I heard the news today…Oh boy…” ~ Lennon-McCartney

The litany of words, “bad, rogue, fraudsters, dishonest, heartless, money-hungry” and such abound in the media today when they describe doctors. Why? And you should ask this question as the number of times the sun comes up for you. Why? A one-person anomaly is brought to bear on the whole profession. A single bad apple and the entire orchard is condemned. Using these logical fallacies through transitive relationship to promote a viewpoint drips of bias. No one ever said that all physicians are saints, although the small miracles that some perform should automatically enter them in the Vatican roster of potential Saints. But with the vitriol that exists today, sainthood is doubtful, let alone livelihood. Something is amiss and the whole equation falls apart on one side of the equal sign.

When you ask an individual about his or her doctor, he or she will use glowing adjectival descriptors. But ask the same question a different way, like what do you think about doctors? And they will reverse course and begin a diatribe of curses. What gives? How can on the one hand, one doctor be good and the rest bad and in today’s illogical world, the one to the many come back to rest on the one.

I think that a 24/7 media, the determined few, and the mindless many, carry most of the blame and I will not shy away into a politically correct cabinet of silence, here. Imagine this, as a corollary, if a small airplane crashes, there is a media blitz for 24 hours and politicians beneath their well-oiled hairdo are behind podiums, pointing fingers, hurling invectives and trying to enact new regulations to control personal freedoms. This back and forth sells news and makes the newsmakers happy to the detriment of the many, until some other tragedy in some far away land beckons their attention. 

Similarly when the actual news is slow, you know, like no airplane crashes, murders, killings, house fires or earthquakes and tsunamis anywhere, where do you think their attention seems to self-direct? You got it, healthcare! So what to do, they can pick up on a story that “broccoli can cause flatulence” ah but that wouldn’t get any attention. Or “smoking causes lung cancer” no that wouldn’t do it either, its old news. There, then starts the wheels and gears of the media machinery, churning away, creating news from the ethereal vapors of conjecture and axioms destroying as they go, faith in the most noble of all profession and those that have sworn to uphold it.

Seriously, think about why we as doctors suddenly became “healthcare providers” or HCPs? If you think about it, its quite simple. The reduced numbers of trained physicians (projected at 45,000 by 2020 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304506904575180331528424238.html)

and close to 125,000 by 2025, by the latest estimates, to handle the burgeoning ranks of baby-boomers within the next decade is going to create NON-MDs/DOs to handle medical care. And they are all too happy at the circumstance to step into shoes that they cannot fill. Did you know that a bill in the UK parliament to allow Operating Room Nurses to do major abdominal surgery was defeated by ONE vote recently? Adding further insult to injury, now the powers that be are attempting to reduce the training time for the physicians, which is nothing more then increasing the mindless herd with the same unified mentality. "Apply within, No critical thinking required." There is a large cache of NPs. RNFAs, PAs that are ready to take on the duties and they are making no bones about it. Yes, they have a significant part to play in medicine but to play the doctor theme (and its not TV anymore) just does not fit. The learning curve is not the same. The knowledge base has a flatter curve based on the curriculum and the experiential reference is limited. The pay schedule will be reduced for all (Its all about money anyway) and everyone will be addressed the same way so that no one feels terminologically abused in this politically correct universe. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. After all that is what the politicians and their prospectors want. Depending on the lobbying efforts, the regulators control the show. If you can take care of a toe than the whole foot is a part of the toe and the ankle and then the knee and then the hip and then the whole body. Why not? Meanwhile doctors compartmentalize themselves into organ specialties of limited view and grand expertise, while the Primary Care physician gets crunched. What happened to the black bag and the stethoscope?

Oh and don’t forget the fact that the sudden policies that are streaming out of the special forces of policy-makers is attempting through a mish-mash of selective data crunching, restraints on certain diagnostic screenings and required/needed therapeutic interventions of diseased patients. Try as they may, they cannot seem to win the battle of lesser screening for prostate cancer, colon cancer or breast cancer is better for you, because someone comes up with a methodologically well defined study to flip the fried egg on their faces. And so they bundle their argument with buzz-words, "This policy will cut costs and improve care." Bull-manure, I am sure.

Travesty? You think? No! Immodest Collusion!

So there we have it. The slow demonization of the noblest of all professions at the altar of a devilish fiscal, perverted science and authoritative control that has accelerated by the applied energized fuel from those that game the system for their own benefits. 

Grand schemes unmoored of logic are stuff of chaos. 

As humans, truth is what we are, without it we become implicit axioms to illicit convictions, like "the earth is flat," for the eye can see no further.

Wither, I dare say, the once noble society of thinking physicians into the robotic multitudes of "healthcare providers" guided by the mandates of illogical thought, untested guidelines, unmoored and mechanical answers, all, with a wink and a smile.

"The King is dead. Long Live the King!"