I woke up this morning listening to NPR's Chana Joffe-Walt and David Kestenbaum explore the question "
Are Doctors More Like Moms or Mechanics?"
Yes, I thought, finally. A really accessible description of this very non-traditional market -- health care -- that is "full of peculiarities" and that our very lives depend upon. (By the way, if you check out the link, be sure to "
Listen to the story" from the page -- it's more entertaining and informative than the dry read sample on the webpage.)
As usual, I then checked a few blogs... lo and behold, Pamela Madsen is raising a ruckus (again), but this time instead of whistling a solo off in the distance (as she's been known to do), Pam's tune (
Speaking Out in The Field Of Reproductive Medicine: It takes Courage) chimes in harmonically with what National Public Radio was just emitting.
The Internet has given us all the ability to know more about wellness, illness, and health care than any other information purveyor. Sure, it's also meant a lot of dangerous and ill-fated self-diagnosis scenarios, but for someone who was mucking around with sick people long before the Web was more than a Department of Defense contract, the difference in overall understanding is phenomenally clear. Heck, if the Internet had been around earlier, my grandmother might have known more about that boil she had me peering at on her leg... But seriously, we don't yet know the full impact on our society of the data proliferation and dissemination that has been enabled by the Web, though you can be sure
those databases are in progress.
Now that our brains are filled to the brim with "how-to's" and "quick tips" and "faq's" on how these vessels we call "bodies" work, some subtler dynamics become more clear to us. Messages that have been (like Pam's) dismissed as personalized grumbling, even by over-educated academics and professionals from within the bowels of the health care beast, are being heard by more than just the crazy old ladies down the street.
The old hippie saying about paranoia and whether you really should be or not comes to mind. That's not to say that the best path right now is to harden into a complete "us versus them" attitude. After all, even the creepiest doctors were loved by their mothers once.
Okay, all snarky back-sliding aside, I've long ranted that consumers are the ones who let this quagmire happen. We wanted to believe in fairy tales, where the knight (doctor) in shining armor (medical school training) swoops by on that fiery steed (health care delivery system) and scoops us up with that comforting and strong arm (medical practice) and delivers us safely back to wholeness.
Sometimes I like to be dragged kicking and screaming away from my escapist fantasies.
Rather than wagging harsh fingers in our own faces at our naivete, let's pat our own little heads with compassion as we enter the brave new world of, finally, truly understanding that doctors are people, the institutions that envelop them are thus changeable even if faulty, and there's really nothing wrong with a round or two of '
Kumbaya' now and then. Finally.