Knowing

(fm the BC thread "The Third of July")

wretchard
... a doctor once said: “it’s always best to know”. Is that true?

A Rabbi once said "The truth shall make you free." Personally I want to know. What else makes us human and proves that we are still alive?

My suspicion is that there has been a change in the attitude of doctors that mirrors larger changes in society. At one time physicians were Prussian authority figures. They decided what was good for their patients, told them what they wanted to and prescribed medication and performed procedures as suited their own judgment. Many sought the god-like power and respect that came with this. Most performed admirably and a few did not. Given the primitive level of knowledge that most doctors had until recently they relied to varying degrees on the respect they commanded to bluff their patients. The cost to them was the possibly crushing burden of responsibility and the gnawing sense of inevitable failure.

Now it is easier for the doctors. They are gaining new tools and shedding an emotional burden.

First they actually are gaining some ability to understand and combat disease. The next 20 years may see a revolution in health care greater than anything since the days of Pasteur and Lister. That is to say it might happen if government administration, corruption, and the impoverishment of our society under the control of rapacious oligarchs leave sufficient resources to pursue the promised cures.

Second the shift from seeing them as personal authority figures to mere functionaries in a politically supervised Health Care System may be welcomed by many doctors. Now the question of what to tell the patient is lifted off the practitioner's shoulders and and transferred to a Best Practices Committee.

Paging Dr Irons and the other BC Ascelpian Irregulars.

herb,
I lost three aunts this year. 103, 97 and 88

God bless. With advertising like that I want to kjnow your gene pool. Any single girls?