A dying breed.
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My family recently suffered through a major medical emergency. My hat goes off to the paramedics who arrived in the nick of time and saved my family member’s life. They were a Godsend as were the emergency room staff at the hospital. It was certainly an enlightening experience for me to watch them work. I am very grateful.
My family member was placed in an Intensive Care Unit for five days. As I sat there, I felt I was in a mini-Mission Control room with beeps, buzzes and pings emanating from respirators, cardiac monitors, and basic life monitoring equipment. Yes, I felt like saying, “Houston, we have a problem.”
I was also charged with producing identification and insurance cards to be inputted into the administrative systems of the hospital. This went way beyond name, rank, and serial number, to a plethora of health questions.
As a systems man, I was impressed by the technology the nursing staff and administrators had to use, but beyond this, the most valuable asset we had at our disposal was our family doctor who appeared promptly at the hospital and carefully guided us through some major decisions.
We have known our family doctor for over thirty years, a good man who has a warm manner about him in treating his patients. He is empathetic, knowledgeable, a good bedside manner, and possesses vast experience. More than this, he has the ability to step back and look at a problem objectively, as opposed to acting on impulse. He’s a dedicated professional with talents no machine can match.
I understand there is a new on-line video app which you can download to your smart phone allowing you to speak face-to-face with a physician. The millennials may gravitate to this, but I certainly will not. There is something to be said about a kind word, a gentle touch, and a sense of humor to help ease the pain. It’s called “personal medicine,” something we have been moving away from in this country due to our technology addiction.
I’m not sure how much longer our family doctor will be practicing medicine. He finds himself harassed by an overbearing government bureaucracy involving countless rules and regulations distracting him from caring for his patients. Every year, more and more doctors are taking early retirement as opposed to putting up with such nonsense. I cannot help but believe this is an attempt to push socialized medicine down our throats. This results in such things as the app I mentioned where you can talk to “Bob” located somewhere in Asia.
Medical care will be more sterile and less personal without the family doctor. The government may not appreciate him, but I, for one, certainly do.
Thank you David.
Keep the Faith!
