passions and soapboxes

Dr. Murphy was our family doctor when I was a child. He did everything, there were no specialist then. He delivered me and was still there to hold my Grandfather’s hand as he left this world. If you called him in the middle of the night and left a message with his service he called you back within 20 minutes. When was the last time you could do that. He knew you and your whole family by name plus your medical history. You knew this man cared about you and he never made you feel you were wasting his time. He could just look at you and diagnose what was wrong without a lot of unnecessary but expensive tests. He didn’t send you to other doctors, he didn’t have too. Dr. Murphy was a gentle man who cared more for his patients than getting rich. Even after he retired and was in his 70’s he still saw his elderly patients in their homes and made sure he had samples of their medications that they could not otherwise afford. This was a hero in the truest sense of the word. This is the doctor we all want today but like the dinosaurs he no longer exists. Instead what we have are HMO’s and doctors with so many patients that they have no idea who you are from one visit to the next. They can’t diagnose anything without a slew of expensive tests that have to be given by other doctors and then still more doctors have to determine the results and then report their findings to your doctor. So he doesn’t really diagnose at all. Doctors have become so specialized that it takes a team of them to determine anything. As for caring about their patients, they are taught in med school to detach and that not getting involved will make them a better doctor. When asked why they became a doctor, most will reply “the money and prestige”. The number of doctors that reply “to help people and save lives” is dwindling at a fast rate. There are so many mistakes made by doctors today that the insurance companies couldn’t afford the malpractice suits so they lobbied for control of how much money a doctor could be sued for and won. Yes there is now a dollar amount on what your life is worth and it isn’t much. Doctors each take an oath and “First do no harm” is at the top of that oath, unfortunately many do more harm than good. This is why doctors are no longer my heroes. So the next time your sitting all alone in an emergency room because it’s after office hours and it takes you 20 hours on average to be seen, ask yourself “Whatever happened to Dr. Murphy.”