Health Crisis, Vol. 3: The Doctors

Hippocrates would be furious.

Most of us either don’t know anything about the Hippocratic oath, or at most we know that it is something with ancient roots that doctors say when they graduate from medical school.

I thought it would only be fair to give doctors input in my post about doctors.  More than one pointed to the oath and how this entire mess violates a central tenet: Do no harm.

Wally spoke with Nevada doctors not involved in this mess, and out-of-state doctors completely removed from the situation.

Almost all of the doctors prefaced their quotes with “after due process, if this turns out to be true” which should be understood as a precursor to their comments.  But the comments themselves all focus on the same central issue: the doctor/patient relationship in Nevada has been devastated by this, and it will take years to rebuild that trust.

The comments show that their disgust was palpable:

“It goes against the main principle of the oath regarding malfeasance.  Do no harm.  Any person even mildly trained in the medical arts would understand this.  It’s an oath that we take.  The number one point, and they just ignored it for a few dollars.”

“This is wanton disregard of patient safety for the sake of profit.  It goes against everything that the medical profession is supposed to represent.”

“This type of behavior is a black eye to the entire medical profession.  It gives good doctors a bad name to a degree that I don’t even know what to compare it to.  I’m speechless.”

“It’s sharing needles.  This is appalling, and drops the ethics level of their clinic to that of a heroin flop house.”

I have no doubt that there will be thorough investigation and prosecution in this case now that it has become public and has a spotlight shining on it.  And those infected should and will be compensated for the damages, but money can’t take away hepatitis or HIV.

The collateral damage done to the medical community at large is immense.  How will that be repaired?

One politico said “Someone should listen to what Rudy Manthei and Dan McBride and others have been saying for years.  We need to punish bad doctors in a severe way so that good doctors can actually practice medicine in a way that helps patients.  Similarly we should punish bad lawyers who put profit ahead of the law and good policy.  These guys have long been advocates of doing business a better way…across the board…of getting rid of bad doctors and bad lawyers so the good guys can do their jobs.”

My source is right.  The question is, how do we do that?