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by untilHellbanned
4256 days ago
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It's interesting that your comment is an nearly exact replica of my PRIOR comment and is the top comment for the thread and mine is the bottom. It's even more interesting that the only thing you added was an utterly non-starter solution (see below). This fits with my growing realization that the HN community is much more nascent for "Hacker" discussion in any area besides software. Sure software development, but biology (my area of expertise), fuggedaboutit. > The solution is moving towards a less money orientated system and trying to encourage altruism and alignment of patient's goals with doctor's actions. Altruism essentially never saves any ships. That's just not how the world operates. It's always about money. The only alignment that will work is more money going towards doctors. |
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In the (non-US) hospital I work we have a really exceptional bunch of general surgeons. 4/6 of them are work-a-holics, 3 work only in the public system (basically halving their salaries c/f if they did a day a week in private practice). They routinely work from 7am til 7pm, love operating, will come in on weekends when they are not on call to see and operate on their patients. The others do small amounts of private work but are still really focused on their public work.
These guys have some degree of martyr complex, some degree of being workaholics, enjoy the status in the community they get from being seen as hardworking altruistic surgeons. They get a truckload of work done and really provide a great service for their patients.
This is not universal but other departments in the hospital have similar personalities.
These kinds of people are the ones that keep a socialised health system going. I think they would really struggle in a for-profit health system because it is really difficult to remain altruistic and go beyond the call of duty consistently when you feel like others are not. When your colleagues are being lazy, when your hospital/insurers are trying to rip you off or tighten the screws, or forcing you to spend large amounts of time doing paperwork and claims. When you feel like you are having to bankrupt your patients by operating on them. All these things make you bitter and stop you caring and performing for your patients.