Partnering in our own bad treatment

THE EDITOR: Why would someone skilled in a craft give less than the best? Why would a professional person possessing great skills of crucial value to their community be constrained to do less than the best? What mechanisms are there to ensure that those who do are called to account? Where in our culture are our people made aware of their rights and expectations? Where are they taught to question the status quo and to request within reason answers to questions they should feel free to ask? Why are they content with what they receive when that product is of inferior quality and would not be acceptable elsewhere? Why do they then throw up their proverbial hands in despair and regard it all as their inevitable lot? Is it because they are a Third World people who should be content with less than their First World contemporaries? Let us ponder these questions for a while.

I shall grant at the outset that the First World is rich, invariably arrogant, largely uncaring, and much absorbed with its own material condition. It is not, however, more intelligent or ethically superior. If we focus on that world’s resources and wealth, we may feel that the services accorded its citizens ought to be better than the services we receive. At one level that is a reasonable presumption, but at another level it is unreasonable to presume this. Here is what I mean: where the service received is made less because the giver cares less, that is a travesty and should not be condoned. Now, it is true that caring less is a somewhat nebulous and amorphous notion that is not easily quantified. Let us then put this in more concrete terms by one or two examples.

Take the pathologist who conducts an investigation of some tissue taken from a sick patient. One would have thought that that doctor should be obliged to produce a report of more than three words, for example. One might argue that three words could succinctly express a finding; however, if that finding is deemed inadequate by one of his peers, and is wholly incomprehensible and puzzling to the family members, then that pathologist should redress that inadequacy. To do otherwise is to show contempt for his patient and indifference for his colleagues. Let us look at another instance: a patient is hospitalised and X-rays are ordered to assist in the diagnosis of a suspected condition. Is it asking too much for a radiologist’s report to be prepared, submitted, and filed? Is it too much for the patient and his family to request (and expect to receive) such a report? Yet, these are not concocted instances...they are taken from real life. It appears that this is “par for the course” within our medical establishment. I contend that this is an untenable situation that should be exposed, resisted and expunged.

The tragedy is that these are merely symptoms of a malaise that afflicts us. It has nothing to do with our Third World reality; instead, it has to do with the regard we have for our fellow citizens. These same professionals placed in a First World context would not behave thus, and such behavior at home should not be accepted. If there is no requirement in law to impose a modicum of regard for one’s patient, then there is surely a moral requirement to do so; the medical profession is beholden to principles of morality as is none other. To show a wanton disregard for one’s patient and one’s patient’s family is to show contempt, and such contempt is contemptible. What, therefore, is the malaise to which I referred in the previous paragraph?

It is the belief that the patient’s expectation ends with what the doctor delivers. We must disabuse our doctors and our citizens of this belief; it is wrong and it demeans us. I must say in closing that I do not have it in for the medical profession: my only child is a doctor and I have always supported him in his choice. But if the emperor walks about naked, he should be told the truth. Please consider these reflections.
 
CARL BLACKWOOD BSc (Hons) Dip Eng. Ph D
California, USA