(Snippets from the frontline)
“Patient-centered” healthcare
Several years ago, our hospital celebrated it’s 40th anniversary. On Medical Staff were 10 founding physicians, but none were invited.
About the same time, a traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall came to our community recognizing veterans. Fifteen doctors and nurses served in this conflict, yet the hospital elected not to honor them during the ceremonies.
Instead, the administration honored themselves at a fancy “Gala.” Certain contracted physicians were invited, but not those who originally established the hospital, nor those who fought in a war defending our country.
Nowadays, hospitals pitch themselves as being “patient-centered” with administrators in charge, not doctors.
But when in the past were hospitals not “patient-centered”?
Hospitals use MD licenses to make money, yet control medical decision-making adversely affecting care while financially benefiting administrators. At some facilities, there are more directors and managers than hospital beds.
In reality, they have strayed from “patient-centered” to “administration-centered” hospitals to pad salaries, bonuses, and retirement plans of those in charge.
Remember that at the next Gala.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
Let’s send your message electronically to everyone in this country, starting with premedical college students. H
Yes, thank you for writing this advice. One approach might be to use the Internet to show students, interns, residents, fellows, and attendings that they have choice of hospitals once they have a choice of medical schools.
A tax-credit for charity care, as in Virginia (1), would help everyone except those administrators paying themselves millions, enjoying the status of being in command, but suing indigent patients for whose benefit Congress intends its nonprofit-hospital tax-exemption: Write to Senator Charles Grassley. He has cited this unethical conduct in a hospital in Missouri. Doctors can avoid such hospitals, beginning with their choice of medical school. In Virginia, reporter Michael Mather alleged such violations in a local “teaching-hospital” (See “Charity Profiting Millions” online, or in The Norfolk Tide.). One has to ask, which ethical values are such “teaching hospitals” teaching? For those who serve in the military, a similar question is which
values are we defending: MBA >> MD?
Yes, thank you for wring this advice. One approach is to use the Internet to show students, interns, residents, fellows, and attendings that they have a choice of hospitals once they have a choice of medical schools.
A tax-credit for charity care, as in Virginia (1), would help everyone except those administrators paying themselves millions, enjoying the status of being in command, but suing indigent patients for whose benefit Congress intends its nonprofit-hospital tax-exemption. Senator Charles Grassley has cited this unethical conduct in a hospital in Missouri. Doctors can avoid such hospitals, beginning with their choice of medical school. In Virginia, reporter Michael Mather alleged such violations in a local “teaching-hospital” (See “Charity Profiting Millions” online, or in The Norfolk Tide.). One has to ask, which ethical values are such “teaching hospitals” teaching? For those who serve in the military, a similar question is which values are we defending?