Dangerous Medicine: Image Repair of Military Healthcare

[island doc]

I wonder if any of you on this forum recall the Cox News Service (Dayton Daily News) articles on military healthcare. They were an expose' on military medicine entitled "Dangerous Medicine", and clearly described the poor quality healthcare provided by the US military.

There is an interesting article written in the aftermath, entitled: "Image Repair of Military Healthcare":

www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/98A1/Methodology.htm

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[militarymd]

Yeah, I worked with an orthopedic surgeon like that when I was in GITMO....He bounced around to the smaller bases where he would be the only Orthopedic surgeon, so that he could continue to commit malpractice under the auspices of the Navy...This was 1997....I know that as of 2004, he was still committing malpractice in an unrestricted manner.

 

[militarymd]

I was fresh out of training in 1997 and suspect to applied political pressures of the rank hiearchy....I believe I talked about how rank distorts healthcare delivery.

If I had met him today, and I was still in the Navy, I would have refused to anesthetize patients for him so that he could commit malpractice. There would be hell to pay though for doing the right thing.....

 

[USAFdoc]

I was fresh out of training in 1997 and suspect to applied political pressures of the rank hiearchy....I believe I talked about how rank distorts healthcare delivery.

If I had met him today, and I was still in the Navy, I would have refused to anesthetize patients for him so that he could commit malpractice. There would be hell to pay though for doing the right thing.....

the things going on at my last base were completely unacceptable. ALL the DOCS would have quit if we had the choice (please read other threads for description of unacceptable items). But in the military culture, they own yopu and your license, and the people calling the shots are those with less experience and less responsibility than the docs.

In other words; I don't care if somebody is going to drive and let me ride shotgun (ie...I take care of patients and let them do the admin stuff), but when they start running over people and are weaving all over the road...I WANT MY KEYS BACK.

As a civilian now, I got my keys back, and a better driver when I am "shotgun".

In regards to the article, not much has changed for the better since more promises were made back in '98 to improve things, in fact, I beleive they are much worse in terms of manning and infrastructure (TRICARE).