What do doctors and airlines have in common?

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yappy said:
Get insurance, HR, IT, custodial services, public safety, upper level management, middle management, administrators, compliance specialists, coders, most of marketing, nursing admins, non-payers etc. etc. etc. out of the health care delivery model. There is too much overhead!
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You gonna mop the hospital floor yourself? lol
 
Perrotfish said:
As a rule, it seems like everyone in the hopsital likes to roll their eyes at what an unnecessary expense every other person in the hospital is. Some of those people might be right, but be aware that the less you understand someone's job the more likely it is that your criticism is going to be unfair.
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...except when I see the posters talking about how "Clinical Laboratory adopted the 5 North Med/Surg Floor and over the past 2 months we've decreased noise levels and call light response times" with a pretty little poster board with graphs and the like, something tells me that it wasn't done on someone's off time. Answering call lights in a prompt manner should be considered the nursing staff's job. Of course I've never understood the "Do the least amount of work you can get away with" mentality that a lot of people (not restricted to any one field) tend to have.
 
Siggy said:
...except when I see the posters talking about how "Clinical Laboratory adopted the 5 North Med/Surg Floor and over the past 2 months we've decreased noise levels and call light response times" with a pretty little poster board with graphs and the like, something tells me that it wasn't done on someone's off time. Answering call lights in a prompt manner should be considered the nursing staff's job. Of course I've never understood the "Do the least amount of work you can get away with" mentality that a lot of people (not restricted to any one field) tend to have.
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Funny thing is they got paid more to make that sign (which probably took them at least half a day, if not a whole day) than a resident made that day.
 
yappy said:
Get insurance, HR, IT, custodial services, public safety, upper level management, middle management, administrators, compliance specialists, coders, most of marketing, nursing admins, non-payers etc. etc. etc. out of the health care delivery model. There is too much overhead!
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Insurance and coders? What's the alternative? Cash pay for everyone? What are you going to do if someone doesn't pay because you're forcing them to go to their insurance company instead of you going directly? An "accounts receivable" is going to be needed regardless of whether it's called "insurance" or something else.

HR? So who's going to vet and keep tract of employment records as well as ensuring that your hospital is following labor laws?

IT? You don't have much EMR experience, do you?

Custodial services? So, as already asked, you're going to mop the floors? Of course I'll admit that my current hospital has these ride on floor mop cars that I wouldn't object if I had a chance to play with one.

Public safety? Welcome to County. there's a reason why every public entrance has a metal detector. Have I mentioned that we also have a part of our ED set up for inmates and a 4 bed area on one of the floors designed for inmates? Even that doesn't change the fact that we'll have inmates almost anywhere on the units, sometimes under guard sometimes not (but always shackled to the bed).

Management and administrators? Sure, probably some of those can go. Not everyone needs a VP of ____. However just saying "management" and "administrators" is a bit broad. Unless you want to supervise your custodial staff and the telephone operators directly.

Compliance specialists? Because being fined during inspections are better? They're a necessary evil, especially if they're relatively nice.

Nursing admin and marketing? Now there's something we can agree on.
 
peteB said:
Yeah, I know, I posted it for comedy. Semi-trolling I guess. Sorry.
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Haha ya it was pretty obvious that you were trolling. But I'm pretty happy I got you to actually say sorry for it lol.

That guy is pretty ridiculous (good/bad?) though. The comments on that article... many people thinking that that is how it should be.
 
Acoustic said:
Haha ya it was pretty obvious that you were trolling. But I'm pretty happy I got you to actually say sorry for it lol.

That guy is pretty ridiculous (good/bad?) though. The comments on that article... many people thinking that that is how it should be.
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Yup, here's a particularly interesting quote from the comments:

"I'm saying that many doctors should have some shame, in what they charge, in many cases for a 15 minute visit, where we wait for an hour, and have to copay, if we have insurance, 30 dollars or more, and where their office charges 150 for our visit. I admire doctors like this one, who puts paitients and service before his own wealth, and greed."

Because it's totally OK for everyone else in society to charge whatever they feel like for their services, but the minute a doctor does, he/she's being greedy... $100 haircut? No one really finds a problem with those existing. $100 doctor's visit? oh no he's so greedy!!
 
don't forget:

"my feeling is that many times doctors are competing on how often they change their Mercedes. I am a believer that doctors should be a choice of a career because you want to help people, like this doctor does, and not to live in the lap of luxury. "

Good luck finding enough people willing to do that buddy 🙂
 
peteB said:
don't forget:

"my feeling is that many times doctors are competing on how often they change their Mercedes. I am a believer that doctors should be a choice of a career because you want to help people, like this doctor does, and not to live in the lap of luxury. "

Good luck finding enough people willing to do that buddy 🙂
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Funny thing is, that doctor DOES live in the lap of luxury - it's why he can afford to charge only $5 a visit lolz
 
Acoustic said:
Funny thing is, that doctor DOES live in the lap of luxury - it's why he can afford to charge only $5 a visit lolz
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Haha, nice!

Honestly if I was him and had his money I would buy myself a private island and chill out. The majority of people out are just not worth it.
 
To answer the questions: Yes, If I owned a clinic I would empty trash cans myself or have one of my MA's do it at the end of the day. I would also outsource IT to the cheapest person possible. The theme of what I was getting at is that the less overhead in medicine the better. There are way too many layers and waist at the hospital I currently work at... I see the clinical staff stretched so thin while other areas seem so robust. This is the product you get when you allow admins to run a clinic/hospital rather than physicians owners like in the video I posted.

I realize it takes alot to keep a hospital running; however, maybe decentralizing services traditionally done in a hospital in physician owned centers, like the surg center, is a good step towards more efficient/cheaper care. I suppose there will always be a need for county/teaching hospitals though.
 
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yappy said:
To answer the questions: Yes, If I owned a clinic I would empty trash cans myself or have one of my MA's do it at the end of the day. I would also outsource IT to the cheapest person possible. The theme of what I was getting at is that the less overhead in medicine the better. There are way too many layers and waist at the hospital I currently work at... I see the clinical staff stretched so thin while other areas seem so robust. This is the product you get when you allow admins to run a clinic/hospital rather than physicians owners like in the video I posted.

I realize it takes alot to keep a hospital running; however, maybe decentralizing services traditionally done in a hospital in physician owned centers, like the surg center, is a good step towards more efficient/cheaper care. I suppose there will always be a need for county/teaching hospitals though.
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I'm at a 456 bed county hospital. That's a lot of trashcans to empty. The thing is with the large tertiary centers (county or academic) is that there's an economy of scale with support systems that makes it much more legitimate to having a good size support staff of IT, facilities, security, etc. It also doesn't change the fact that the people who are paying are covering those who can't. I don't imagine that the surgery center in the video you posted is taking care of everyone who wants services.
 
yappy said:
To answer the questions: Yes, If I owned a clinic I would empty trash cans myself or have one of my MA's do it at the end of the day. I would also outsource IT to the cheapest person possible. The theme of what I was getting at is that the less overhead in medicine the better. There are way too many layers and waist at the hospital I currently work at... I see the clinical staff stretched so thin while other areas seem so robust. This is the product you get when you allow admins to run a clinic/hospital rather than physicians owners like in the video I posted.

I realize it takes alot to keep a hospital running; however, maybe decentralizing services traditionally done in a hospital in physician owned centers, like the surg center, is a good step towards more efficient/cheaper care. I suppose there will always be a need for county/teaching hospitals though.
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Are you SURE you would do the janitorial tasks? After all, you do know that is the most stressful job in the hospital:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/48843040?badge=0
 
yappy said:
WHOA! I Need to be in the 1% so I can enjoy my health!
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Yeah, dude, life on earth sucks for pretty much everyone except a select few. Especially in the developing world. I'm really surprised you don't see a lot more suicide than you do. Survival instincts are pretty damn strong.
 
Siggy said:
...except when I see the posters talking about how "Clinical Laboratory adopted the 5 North Med/Surg Floor and over the past 2 months we've decreased noise levels and call light response times" with a pretty little poster board with graphs and the like, something tells me that it wasn't done on someone's off time. Answering call lights in a prompt manner should be considered the nursing staff's job. Of course I've never understood the "Do the least amount of work you can get away with" mentality that a lot of people (not restricted to any one field) tend to have.
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Quality assurance and staffing control are both big jobs. Getting people to do more work for the same money, and to improve outcomes of that work for the same money, is a big job. Anyone who has worked in a factor enviornment knows that this isn't a healthcare thing. At the same time the nature of nursing staffing is also a big job, much more unique to the healthcare industry: managers have the unenvioable task of dragging in and/or kicking out staff based on the number of patient's in the ward to make sure that there is never a single superfulous nurse getting paid for a night's shift. Most bosses make their work schedule months in advance, hosptial managers have about 12 hours.

I know these people seem useless to you, but I promise many of them are keeping costs down. The major hospital chains like HCA are for profit, union breaking cash mongers and have no reason to pay any nurse or nurse manager a dime more than they absolutely have to. They're not hiring these people because they want to throw money away, they're hiring them because they realize that a manager allows them to stretch dozens of nurses out over half a dozen beds each, while without one they start getting serious errors when the nurses are covering more than 3 beds. The poster with all those graphs does seem to be useless, but also silly and withing the normal range of morale building activities. I'd be amazed if it took more than 15 minutes to make.
 
Perrotfish said:
Quality assurance and staffing control are both big jobs. Getting people to do more work for the same money, and to improve outcomes of that work for the same money, is a big job. Anyone who has worked in a factor enviornment knows that this isn't a healthcare thing. At the same time the nature of nursing staffing is also a big job, much more unique to the healthcare industry: managers have the unenvioable task of dragging in and/or kicking out staff based on the number of patient's in the ward to make sure that there is never a single superfulous nurse getting paid for a night's shift. Most bosses make their work schedule months in advance, hosptial managers have about 12 hours.

I know these people seem useless to you, but I promise many of them are keeping costs down. The major hospital chains like HCA are for profit, union breaking cash mongers and have no reason to pay any nurse or nurse manager a dime more than they absolutely have to. They're not hiring these people because they want to throw money away, they're hiring them because they realize that a manager allows them to stretch dozens of nurses out over half a dozen beds each, while without one they start getting serious errors when the nurses are covering more than 3 beds. The poster with all those graphs does seem to be useless, but also silly and withing the normal range of morale building activities. I'd be amazed if it took more than 15 minutes to make.
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Lol I have seen what nurse managers do first hand. I even helped one make a poster once, which she had already spent half a day on
 
peteB said:
Because it's totally OK for everyone else in society to charge whatever they feel like for their services, but the minute a doctor does, he/she's being greedy... $100 haircut? No one really finds a problem with those existing. $100 doctor's visit? oh no he's so greedy!!
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The barber isn't wrapped up in public funding and regulation like a physician. When you performa service for cash, and anyone is allowed to do what you do, then you can charge whatever you want. Of course, so can everyone else, which is why very few barbers can actually charge $100 for a haircut (I pay $8). Free market pressures keep costs down and everyone has to work hard and well just to stay in business.

However when you have the federal government licensing your profession (so others can't practice), making your profession the exclusive go between to a huge market (with perscription rights), and just flat out paying your profession most of their money (Medicare/Medicaid are our biggest markets) then your pay has an ethical component to it. The poeple who are protecting and bankrolling your profession have a right to talk about what you SHOULD charge. Because without normal free market pressures what you CAN charge is essentially ulimted. Public opinon and regulation then necissarily takes the place of a free market.
 
Perrotfish said:
I know these people seem useless to you, but I promise many of them are keeping costs down. The major hospital chains like HCA are for profit, union breaking cash mongers and have no reason to pay any nurse or nurse manager a dime more than they absolutely have to. They're not hiring these people because they want to throw money away, they're hiring them because they realize that a manager allows them to stretch dozens of nurses out over half a dozen beds each, while without one they start getting serious errors when the nurses are covering more than 3 beds. The poster with all those graphs does seem to be useless, but also silly and withing the normal range of morale building activities. I'd be amazed if it took more than 15 minutes to make.
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The people seem useless to me because I can't imagine what it would be like to only work above the absolute minimum because someone made a poster or dragged me kicking and screaming to excellence. I was raised with a work ethic that wasn't "do the least amount of work, lowest quality work possible." I guess that explains a lot about nursing.
 
Siggy said:
The people seem useless to me because I can't imagine what it would be like to only work above the absolute minimum because someone made a poster or dragged me kicking and screaming to excellence. I was raised with a work ethic that wasn't "do the least amount of work, lowest quality work possible." I guess that explains a lot about nursing.
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Maybe you're unique. I felt like most of the physicians I know also tend to work the bare minimum they can, that minimum is just higher most of the time. I don't remember a lot of my classmates killing themselves in the 4th year of medical school, even though the opportunity to educate themselves was much better than in 3rd year. In fact they mostly didn't work at all. I also don't know many physicians who have graduated from residency and continued to work and study 100 hours a week because its what's best for the business, for their patients, or even for their finances. Most physicians tend to work hard when they're AT work, but that's either because there's a metaphorical gun to their heads (residents) or because they can leave when they work is done and therefore have a strong incentive to get their stuff finished as soon as possible (attendings). Most seem to maximize their hours outside of work, in any event. If we don't need quality control managers its only because we live under a constant threat of litigation, and where I've seen systems where that threat is gone (prison medicine, for example) I don't remember seeing a lot of quality. I don't see anything particularly noble in how we behave as physicians.

FWIW I've worked crappy shift work jobs (though briefly) and I can't say that I didn't do a lot of screwing around. I would probably need some motivation if I was a nurse.
 
Perrotfish said:
The barber isn't wrapped up in public funding and regulation like a physician. When you performa service for cash, and anyone is allowed to do what you do, then you can charge whatever you want. Of course, so can everyone else, which is why very few barbers can actually charge $100 for a haircut (I pay $8). Free market pressures keep costs down and everyone has to work hard and well just to stay in business.

However when you have the federal government licensing your profession (so others can't practice), making your profession the exclusive go between to a huge market (with perscription rights), and just flat out paying your profession most of their money (Medicare/Medicaid are our biggest markets) then your pay has an ethical component to it. The poeple who are protecting and bankrolling your profession have a right to talk about what you SHOULD charge. Because without normal free market pressures what you CAN charge is essentially ulimted. Public opinon and regulation then necissarily takes the place of a free market.
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Barbers are licensed and regulated by the government too. In New York State, for example, barbers must go to barber school and complete a 2 year apprenticeship before they can become fully licensed barbers (source: http://www.dos.ny.gov/licensing/barber/barbering_faq.html). So no, not just anyone can be a barber.

Medicare/Medicaid are not the majority of payments to every doctor. A large number of doctors don't take Medicaid patients at all, and many also don't take Medicare. A few of them are even cash only! Even if they are taking Medicare, the fact that your pay is routed through the government doesn't attach any more ethics to it than if you were taking it from people directly. Either way you should have a right to charge whatever you feel like- and they have a right to pay whatever they are willing to. The same market principles apply even though there is regulation. It's not completely free market but it is still based on supply, demand, competition, etc. The prices medicare pays are based on those free market principles, not ethics, or even what patients think we should get paid. They're based on the market.

We definitely do not work in an environment where free market principles don't apply and we can charge whatever we want. That is just not true. They all still apply.

That wasn't my point anyway. I just thought it was unfair that a doctor wanting to be paid anything more than a pittance automatically = greed in most people's minds, but any other professional making a lot of money is not a problem at all, and often celebrated and painted in a positive light.
 
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A guy in my class was asking our small group facilitator if it was ok to pay for patients if they couldn't afford it. He went on a soapbox speech about how he would pay for anyone's care out of pocket if they couldn't pay. Some people just have a save the world delusion. Naivete abounds

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SpecterGT260 said:
A guy in my class was asking our small group facilitator if it was ok to pay for patients if they couldn't afford it. He went on a soapbox speech about how he would pay for anyone's care out of pocket if they couldn't pay. Some people just have a save the world delusion. Naivete abounds

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Yeah right, I'd love to see how often that actually ends up happening in his career. I'd bet never. Most people who talk like that are full of cr-p. Do you think he'd be in med school if doctors got paid minimum wage?? I think not. Saving the world my a--.
 
peteB said:
Yeah right, I'd love to see how often that actually ends up happening in his career. I'd bet never. Most people who talk like that are full of cr-p. Do you think he'd be in med school if doctors got paid minimum wage?? I think not. Saving the world my a--.
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Id say he might. Then again he may not make it through. He is already held back 1 year. Just goes to show you that talent > good intentions when it comes to admissions.

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Perrotfish said:
Maybe you're unique. I felt like most of the physicians I know also tend to work the bare minimum they can, that minimum is just higher most of the time. I don't remember a lot of my classmates killing themselves in the 4th year of medical school, even though the opportunity to educate themselves was much better than in 3rd year. In fact they mostly didn't work at all. I also don't know many physicians who have graduated from residency and continued to work and study 100 hours a week because its what's best for the business, for their patients, or even for their finances. Most physicians tend to work hard when they're AT work, but that's either because there's a metaphorical gun to their heads (residents) or because they can leave when they work is done and therefore have a strong incentive to get their stuff finished as soon as possible (attendings). Most seem to maximize their hours outside of work, in any event. If we don't need quality control managers its only because we live under a constant threat of litigation, and where I've seen systems where that threat is gone (prison medicine, for example) I don't remember seeing a lot of quality. I don't see anything particularly noble in how we behave as physicians.

FWIW I've worked crappy shift work jobs (though briefly) and I can't say that I didn't do a lot of screwing around. I would probably need some motivation if I was a nurse.
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The bold is the only important thing part of your post, and the rest of it completely missed the mark. Working hard while at work IS working more than the bare minimum. It isn't measured by the hours at work, but the quality produced during those hours. If nurses need some poster to remind them to answer call lights, then that's a huge issue. It's like having posters to remind surgeons to not forget to scrub in or to remind emergency physicians to order an EKG on the patient with typical chest pain. Heck, you even admitted that if it wasn't for those managers most nurses would be a danger to their patients at more than 3 patients.
 
SpecterGT260 said:
Id say he might. Then again he may not make it through. He is already held back 1 year. Just goes to show you that talent > good intentions when it comes to admissions.

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No doubt, intentions and skill have no correlation at all. I'd rather go to the guy who is really skilled and does a great job though he's doing for it money than the guy who genuinely cares but sucks.
 
Siggy said:
The bold is the only important thing part of your post, and the rest of it completely missed the mark. Working hard while at work IS working more than the bare minimum. It isn't measured by the hours at work, but the quality produced during those hours. If nurses need some poster to remind them to answer call lights, then that's a huge issue. It's like having posters to remind surgeons to not forget to scrub in or to remind emergency physicians to order an EKG on the patient with typical chest pain. Heck, you even admitted that if it wasn't for those managers most nurses would be a danger to their patients at more than 3 patients.
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Working harder is at work is only working harder if you're working a shift and need.to be there anyway. If your workload is preventing you from leaving rather than the clock then working harder is just you trying to get out of work sooner. Which is the case for most attendings.

A work ethic is measured by how well you do what you don't need to do. Double checking an ekg because you'll be sued otherwise, or working harder so you can get out earlier, isn't a work ethic. Working through 4th year for the sake knowing enough for your patients is a work ethic. And no one does it.
 
peteB said:
No doubt, intentions and skill have no correlation at all. I'd rather go to the guy who is really skilled and does a great job though he's doing for it money than the guy who genuinely cares but sucks.
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This might change when you see how the more for profit places work. The guys who are in it for the money often run through patients at a rate that is truely dangerous. Having seen the outcomes of both, I think I'd take 20 minutes with the guy who cares (but kinda sucks) than 5 minutes with the cash mongering genius.
 
Perrotfish said:
This might change when you see how the more for profit places work. The guys who are in it for the money often run through patients at a rate that is truely dangerous. Having seen the outcomes of both, I think I'd take 20 minutes with the guy who cares (but kinda sucks) than 5 minutes with the cash mongering genius.
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That's fair

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DrOwnage said:
I read a small essay someone wrote for a similar thread a while ago and I found it to be very well written. Thought I would share it...

It always amazes me that for some reason, people (and many bleeding heart medical students) associate the financial prospering of physicians with evil. As if a doctor who has worked hard, helped lots of patients, and earned a good living along the way is somehow less of a good person than another physician simply because that other physician made less. And such thinking implies that any physician who has made a lot of money has done so by taking advantage of sick people, and this is simply not true. You know what else isn't true? The notion that being paid less for less than you're worth somehow makes you a good person. Utter nonsense. It simply means that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. In almost every other profession or occupation, doing something for less than its worth doesn't make you noble, it makes you look foolish.

I don't understand the logic employed by those who say physicians should not make a lot of money, and its not just because I would like to make good money (although I won't deny it). I don't understand why people are perfectly ok with an absolute airhead like Kim Kardashian making tens of millions of dollars a year (while helping no one, and appearing in shows that appeal to the foulest natures of human beings, not to mention shows that if I watch make me dumber by the second), and yet people are outraged at the thought of a doctor making too much money (while working much longer hours, and trying to help many people). If you actually think about it, it's kind of a sad commentary on the things we place value on as a society. We've learned to celebrate decadence, hedonism, and rapidly-earned wealth (or wealth not truly EARNED at all), while despising and resenting hard work, sacrifice, and higher education.

Perhaps a better example of this double standard is someone like Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonalds (until tomorrow, at any rate). He vastly increased McDonald's sales (by something like 18-20 billion dollars), and as a result was granted a 5 year compensation package of something like 70 million dollars (including other positions and holdings), and was celebrated for his success in magazines and tv shows, including forbes. Now, why in the world are people perfectly ok paying this man HUNDREDS of times what a physician makes, while he produces and sells a product that arguably only DECREASES the quality of people's lives and makes them sicker, and then those same consumers squawk when the physician they hire to fix the damage done to them by McDonald's makes a couple hundred thousand a year? Forgive the language and the run-on sentence, but that is bat$h!t crazy.

It seems to me, that if people are ok with someone making millions while helping no one but themselves, then it stands to reason that they would be willing to adequately compensate someone who has worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, and helps A LOT of people (and by the way, has a knowledge/skill set that people not only desire, but in many cases desperately need.) People these days have no problem whatsoever spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of things that trash their health, like fatty food and television, but god forbid they be asked to shell out any money to actually IMPROVE their health. All the while, the agent that improves their health, namely the doctor, is endlessly criticized for making a living by providing such a measly service as PROLONGING THEIR LIFE.

I am not impressed with those med students who shoot themselves in the foot, claiming to be happy making less, while vilifying anyone who tries to make more. I do not think they are noble OR good-intentioned. Rather, quite the opposite. Am I the only one who finds these people to be preachy, self-aggrandizing, overly-zealous, and tiresome to be around? Who are they to impose their standards of happiness and prosperity upon other students or physicians? If they wish to accept less compensation, that is of course their right...but it is a whole other matter to begin to actively sabotage and undermine the attempts of other physicians to prosper to the best of their ability, and to belittle and criticize their efforts to do so. At that point, the bleeding hearts have become oppressors, imposing their own arbitrary standards of value and happiness upon others, and then vilifying their victims as greedy profiteers for not being as ignorantly happy in poverty as they themselves are. Just because one bleeding heart numbskull is satisfied making only 80 grand a year, does not mean that all doctors will be, and nor does it mean that all doctors SHOULD be. We are all free to define the terms of our own happiness and satisfaction, and to pursue it as such.

Perhaps these self-sabotaging med students are happy living lives as monastic priests do, taking vows of poverty, refusing to find pleasure in material comforts or monetary compensation. That is perfectly, fine, and can even be admirable (although I do not particularly agree, I find it to be a form of self-hatred, a kind of groveling self-abasement). But that is still their right. Certainly, not everyone defines happiness as a big house on a hill, with an expensive european sports car in the driveway. But some of us do, and it is not the responsibility of self-flagellating monk-like med students to tell us that OUR version of happiness is illegitimate. And it is certainly not their job to prevent us from earning it.

The bottom line, doctors work hard, they truly care about the people in their care, and they are in possession of a skill set that is in high demand. They have every right to expect good compensation for their efforts. I'm not even going to begin going into all the other reasons why physicians should be well paid (to attract and foster the abilities of the best possible candidates, the ramifications for patient care, the educational costs, etc.), because to talk about those would turn an already long post into a veritable textbook. Suffice it to say, I think there are far more arguments that could be made in favor of high physician compensation than there are arguments that could be made against it. "Because it makes you feel all gooey inside" may work as justification for some self-hating med students who feel the need to abase themselves, but for the rest of us, we may need something a little more substantial than feelings to pay our med school loans, and get our future kids through college.
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:clap: :clap: :clap: :bow:

Thank you DrOwnage for your incredibly insightful and well-written response! This is absolutely brilliant! I think that I will share this with friends who feel the same way.

You brought up an interesting point toward the end of it that reminded me of working a crappy job back in undergrad (I bolded it by the way). When I was a lowly undergraduate, I worked some Friday and Saturday nights as a pizza delivery guy. One moment that I will never forget was when I delivered to a large house with a woman and her infant son at the door. She was extremely friendly when she opened the door and made sure that her son said "hi" to me when I was handing them the food. She was all smiles and kept thanking me, and she made sure that her son also said "thank you" as I was leaving. They were both waving to me as I got into my car. It was rare to see people that were so grateful and friendly when I was delivering pizzas. But then came the real shocker. As I looked at the signed credit card slip, they left the part for the tip blank and just wrote in the original total of the food. I was livid, and when I called my friend, I think I called her just about every profanity in the dictionary.

So of course seeing someone friendly made me feel all "gooey inside" as you mentioned above, when I was conversing with them. But the moment I got stiffed, I became very angry. So what would happen if ten people like her would answer the door to all of my deliveries? Can I possibly get by with zero tips and peoples' friendliness? No, it's just not possible. If I delivered to ten people like her in a night, I would probably quit by my last delivery. I would rather deliver to ten jackasses who close the door in my face but give me a good tip.

I think the same applies to being a physician. If you really want to "give back" to the community and what not, no one is stopping you from working at a free clinic, going on mission trips, or providing other people care. For some physicians, that "gooey feeling" will make it worth the effort. For other physicians, that "gooey feeling" will not be worth the effort. Unfortunately that "gooey feeling" isn't going to pay for their loans, put food on the table, or buy them luxuries after devoting years of their lives to learning. As for the people who enjoy the "gooey feeling," go enjoy it, but don't try to force it on other people. Kindness and gratefulness are not going to be equivalent to a pizza guy's tip, just like kindness and gratefulness from uninsured or poor patients won't be equivalent to paying your bills or putting food on the table.
 
peteB said:
A lot of people save lives that aren't doctors. Firefighters, policemen, emergency medical technicians, just to name a few. If a firefighter had pulled you from a burning building and saved your life, he would have done the same for the economy as that surgeon did. So doesn't he deserve as much as the surgeon based on your logic?
Click to expand...

Yeah but if you call 911 and for whatever reason these guys can't save you they won't be facing a multimillion dollar lawsuit. It also doesn't cost 300k and take 11-15+ years of post high school training to become a firefighter, EMT, or cop....you can do it out of high school with a year or two of training in most cases.
 
Jlaw said:
Yeah but if you call 911 and for whatever reason these guys can't save you they won't be facing a multimillion dollar lawsuit. It also doesn't cost 300k and take 11-15+ years of post high school training to become a firefighter, EMT, or cop....you can do it out of high school with a year or two of training in most cases.
Click to expand...

+1
IMO the malpractice system in this country is outrageous. Yes, people deserve to be compensated when a doctor seriously screws up and hurts someone.

However

If you think about it, 90% of people in hospitals (or some other number that I didnt just make up right now) are going to die without intervention of some sort anyways. Malpractice in many cases seems to approach some sort of "breach of contract" where the physician was obligated to produce a positive result. Now we have lawsuits over negative outcomes where no negligence existed AT ALL :barf: It strikes me as completely absurd. So.... you were gunna die, went to a doctor and then died anyways and now it is the doctors fault? Isn't that kinda like me walking toward a cliff, falling over, and then suing a bystander for not warning me? Malpractice should be restricted only to intentional abuse of practice (Rx or procedures that are unwarranted AND given only to pad the doctors pocket) or when a mistake was made that was perfectly avoidable WITHOUT hindsight. Otherwise the people should be told to put their energies into either mourning or coping with the outcome :shrug:
 
Planes2Doc said:
:clap: :clap: :clap: :bow:

Thank you DrOwnage for your incredibly insightful and well-written response! This is absolutely brilliant! I think that I will share this with friends who feel the same way.

You brought up an interesting point toward the end of it that reminded me of working a crappy job back in undergrad (I bolded it by the way). When I was a lowly undergraduate, I worked some Friday and Saturday nights as a pizza delivery guy. One moment that I will never forget was when I delivered to a large house with a woman and her infant son at the door. She was extremely friendly when she opened the door and made sure that her son said "hi" to me when I was handing them the food. She was all smiles and kept thanking me, and she made sure that her son also said "thank you" as I was leaving. They were both waving to me as I got into my car. It was rare to see people that were so grateful and friendly when I was delivering pizzas. But then came the real shocker. As I looked at the signed credit card slip, they left the part for the tip blank and just wrote in the original total of the food. I was livid, and when I called my friend, I think I called her just about every profanity in the dictionary.

So of course seeing someone friendly made me feel all "gooey inside" as you mentioned above, when I was conversing with them. But the moment I got stiffed, I became very angry. So what would happen if ten people like her would answer the door to all of my deliveries? Can I possibly get by with zero tips and peoples' friendliness? No, it's just not possible. If I delivered to ten people like her in a night, I would probably quit by my last delivery. I would rather deliver to ten jackasses who close the door in my face but give me a good tip.

I think the same applies to being a physician. If you really want to "give back" to the community and what not, no one is stopping you from working at a free clinic, going on mission trips, or providing other people care. For some physicians, that "gooey feeling" will make it worth the effort. For other physicians, that "gooey feeling" will not be worth the effort. Unfortunately that "gooey feeling" isn't going to pay for their loans, put food on the table, or buy them luxuries after devoting years of their lives to learning. As for the people who enjoy the "gooey feeling," go enjoy it, but don't try to force it on other people. Kindness and gratefulness are not going to be equivalent to a pizza guy's tip, just like kindness and gratefulness from uninsured or poor patients won't be equivalent to paying your bills or putting food on the table.
Click to expand...

That was an EXCELLENT example of why wanting a good salary or to be successful is not a bad thing. It should be added at the end of the other long post, printed, and distributed to all.
 
Acoustic said:
That was an EXCELLENT example of why wanting a good salary or to be successful is not a bad thing. It should be added at the end of the other long post, printed, and distributed to all.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it will change their opinions. The guys who keep saying doctors shouldn't be wanting to make money are the same guys who'd probably say we should live austere like monks and our only monetary gain should be to put the bare minimum clothes on our back and food in our mouths, everything else is too much. The rest we should gain from the satisfaction of helping others 🙂
 
SpecterGT260 said:
+1
IMO the malpractice system in this country is outrageous. Yes, people deserve to be compensated when a doctor seriously screws up and hurts someone.

However

If you think about it, 90% of people in hospitals (or some other number that I didnt just make up right now) are going to die without intervention of some sort anyways. Malpractice in many cases seems to approach some sort of "breach of contract" where the physician was obligated to produce a positive result. Now we have lawsuits over negative outcomes where no negligence existed AT ALL :barf: It strikes me as completely absurd. So.... you were gunna die, went to a doctor and then died anyways and now it is the doctors fault? Isn't that kinda like me walking toward a cliff, falling over, and then suing a bystander for not warning me? Malpractice should be restricted only to intentional abuse of practice (Rx or procedures that are unwarranted AND given only to pad the doctors pocket) or when a mistake was made that was perfectly avoidable WITHOUT hindsight. Otherwise the people should be told to put their energies into either mourning or coping with the outcome :shrug:
Click to expand...

I think you'd be surprised by how many dumb/negligent/incompetent/etc doctors there are out there.
 
JP2740 said:
I think you'd be surprised by how many dumb/negligent/incompetent/etc doctors there are out there.
Click to expand...

Could be. But that doesn't mean that there aren't cases being won over outcomes and not negligence

Sent from my DROID RAZR using SDN Mobile
 
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