The Future

[Ziehl-Neelsen]

I, like many others in this forum, am firmly convinced that the reckoning is coming. The status quo may be preserved through this legislative session, but I have come to accept in the past year that the United States will go the way of Europe and morgtage the future of our nation so that the current living generations can enjoy a "relatively" care free 50 year window, and then conveniently shuffle off this mortal coil before the check comes.

I have recently been pondering one of the unintended consequences (at least for me) of becoming a physician, and that is my ability to rely on professional courtesy. I don't actually go to doctor's appointments anymore. If another case of Erythema Multiforme pops up I call my buddy the dermatology resident who happily examines me and prescribes some steroids before derm conference. If my wife can't get an appointment with the OB/Gyn, she calls the resident who at one time was her medical student, and they agree to meet for 15 minutes at the end of the day. Likewise, when a friend's wife has a biopsy performed, I rush it and give the friend a call so he can sit at the scope with me while I examine it.

All of us have made numerous physician contacts in our careers. As medicine deteriorates over the coming years, I expect that a kind of "barter economy" will spring up amongst physicians that the layperson is not privy to. Does anybody else feel the same way? What prognostications do y'all have for how things will unfold in the future?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[stickyshift]

All of us have made numerous physician contacts in our careers. As medicine deteriorates over the coming years, I expect that a kind of "barter economy" will spring up amongst physicians that the layperson is not privy to. Does anybody else feel the same way? What prognostications do y'all have for how things will unfold in the future?[/QUOTE]

One way to piss off supporters of the public option/single payer is to say, "Look, as a physician, I'm always going to have timely access to the health care system."