As Physicians Today, We Must Both Represent the “System” and Disregard it

By HANS DUVEFELT, MD Healthcare today, in the broadest sense, is not a benevolent giant that wraps its powerful arms around the sick and vulnerable. It is a world of opposing forces such as Government public health ambitions and more or less unfettered market ambitions by hospitals and downright profiteering by some of the middlemen who stand between doctors and patients, such as insurers, Pharmacy Benefits Managers, EMR vendors and other technology companies. Within healthcare there is also a growing, more or less money-focused sector of paramedicine, promoting “alternative” belief systems, some of which may be right on and showing the future direction for us all and some of which are pure quackery. I stand by my conviction that physicians must embrace the role of guide for their patients. If we see ourselves only as instruments or tools in the service of the Government, the insurance companies or our healthcare organizations, patients are likely to mistrust our motives when we make diagnoses or recommend treatments. On the other hand, if we work within the traditional healthcare system, we must strive to understand it well and present fairly the merits of the establishment’s usual approach to our patient’s problem. When our own educated opinion differs from mainstream medicine, it is our professional and ethical duty to tell our patients what we understand about their options and make it clear that this is not at this point in time the typi...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Primary Care Hans Duvefelt Healthcare system Source Type: blogs