| |
April
2002
Volume 66 |
Number
4
|
| |
VENTILATIONS
|
| Where
Would You Rather Be But Right Here, Right Now? |
Mark J.
Lema, M.D., Ph.D.
Editor
|
|
Mark
J. Lema, M.D., Ph.D. Editor
|
|
Despite the
fact that Coach Marv Levy uttered these words of encouragement
when the Buffalo Bills went to four straight Super Bowl Games
– and lost all of them – their team spirit remained
high. After all of the jokes, the "loser" moniker, the
failure to grab the ultimate brass ring of football, sports historians
are now regarding this team as one of the best to ever be assembled,
and Canton, Ohio, is seeing an on-rush of ex-Bill inductees.
Medicine today
is a lot like a championship team unable to reach its highest
goal – the unobstructed comfort, care and cure of patients.
As a middle-aged physician ostensibly at the "top of my game,"
I am frustrated by HMO officials regulating my judgment for monetary
reasons. Officer-rank seabees, GIs and flyboy nurse anesthetists
thinking that they are as good as physicians infuriate me. I am
insulted by business people, lawyers and politicians smugly criticizing
the quality of health care, only to "work" the system
to obtain first-class care for themselves. The status of failing
academic medical centers that must now answer to the bureaucrats
with selective-amnesia who cry, "what have you done for us
lately?" saddens me. Finally, I am tired of explaining to
everyone that medicine is not an exact science but rather involves
intuition, Gestalt and, yes, talent on the part of all who practice
it.
However,
I am so happy that I selected, and was selected, to be part of
an inner sanctum of compassionate humans. We doctors dedicate
our lives and careers to improving the human condition against
disease, despair, suffering and pain. I do not care about the
ignorance of nurse anesthetists who don't know what they don't
know. I ignore the serpentine-tongued comments of CEOs who pretend
to profess "quality" when they really mean "profit."
I smirk at the attorneys who think that they are making the world
a better place to live by suing their mothers. I pity the HMO
executives who will soon be out of a job, only to become pariahs
in their own profession.
I proudly
belong to a profession of healers, a cult of practitioners who
never stop being doctors. I have cared for patients at O'Hare
Airport, in New Orleans, in the Valley of the Kings and at 35,000
feet over the Atlantic Ocean – never knowing their names,
never expecting more than a sincere "thank you" and
never worrying about malpractice. I know other physicians who
have also been called upon after-hours to administer their healing
powers. We do what society entrusts doctors to do – to comfort,
care and cure whenever a fellow human being is in need. Accountants,
lawyers, CEOs and software giants will never know that level of
public trust, and they may not care. But that is OK, because they
will never know real trust until they are at the receiving end.
Then they will be our biggest fans, just like our patients who
entrust their lives to us daily.
Yes, medical
doctors are like the 1991-94 Buffalo Bills. They are highly trained,
focused, committed and dedicated professionals who are intent
on achieving their goals. Even though the Bills fell short four
times, most fans agree that they were one of the best teams in
the NFL during their glory years. We, too, may not be satisfied
with the free-fall that health care is experiencing or our ability
to practice medicine at the level we were trained. We still make
a difference, however, in the lives and hopes of the people in
the communities we serve – one anesthetic, one patient at
a time. – M.J.L.
|