Wolfeye wrote:HouseMD- I guess that superior intellect of yours isn't enough to read a couple of paragraphs, eh? You didn't manage to develop that ability in the course of your education & training?
Well, let's see if I can keep it real short for you: Medical quality is determined by patient satisfaction, not academic value. You doing something that is a problem for the patient is NOT of good quality. Your "methods of practice" exist soley to provide service to the patient. You are foolish for not doing what the patient wants in an effort to provide them with adequate care- simply because doing them harm is not an assistance. This includes harm generated by medical practices.
You also are not liable for the patient's decisions. You ARE liable for what you do to them. You think you're not liable for victimizing someone? You're out of your mind. That or very sneaky.
You are not smart enough to know what the patient wants in advance. This requires you to listen- not speak & act like they said it instead, not imaginarily edit what they say, not arrogantly disregard & do whatever you feel like. This is impossible for someone like you.
P.S.- Are the dangers or unrelabilities of sceening something the doctor is liable for not informing somoene of if any ramifications are realized? If someone has a miscarriage after being forced into "tests the doctor thinks well of," that's less of a miscarriage than if someone kicked her in the belly? Not liable for prescribing someone something that causes damage to their health, either? The patient should know better than to trust the doctor & the liability is on the patient. Except when they make their own decisions.
Medical quality is determined by patient outcomes, not patient satisfaction. I'd rather have a patient that hated me but lived because of my care than one that thought I was the best doc ever but died because I did what he said rather than what was the standard of care.
And I never claimed to have a superior intellect. I'm an average guy who happens to be training to be a doctor. That being said, I rightfully claim to know more about medicine and medical practice than you, just as any expert in any field has more knowledge than even a well-read layperson. I just have a low tolerance for bullshit, and can't bring myself to read much of it, as it tends to make my blood pressure go through the roof for no good reason.
A doctor can be held liable for miscarriages and whatnot from diagnostic testing, deaths from administering the wrong medication, etc. It's called malpractice and happens all the time.
I don't know what weird world you come from that all the doctors are crazy people that hate humanity. Most of us got into this because we want to help people. If we wanted money, we could have gone to Wall Street. If we wanted power or prestige, we could have gone into politics. But we chose to work our asses off for over a decade so we could fight an uphill battle in a crumbling system of high liability, decreasing reimbursement, increasing mistrust, high stress, and long hours because we actually want to do something worthwhile with our lives rather than being pencil pushers, bean counters, or power brokers. It's a sacrifice, not some wonderful or magical perfect career, where you give just about everything- your health, your time, your youth, your personal relationships- up to help save the lives of others. The only thing that is crazy is that we have the persistence and drive to do it at all, despite the whole world working against us.
