Yes! We're all missing Ramona something awful!!! Gosh!!!
Lori, I wish it were as easy as to blame the doctors for their attitudes at not wanting to work with us, but I honestly think that this is the fault of us patients and not our doctors!!
Lori, here in Brazil it is a very, very difficult thing to sue a doctor! And if you do manage to sue one, you won't make a whole lot of mone on it!! This really discourages those who are greedy from being abusive! (remember the woman who sued McDonalds in the 80s because her coffee was HOT???
Honestly what else would it be?!)
From the mid 70s on, Doctors became fair game for the greedy!! One little oops and the lawyers were all over the patient encouraging them to sue (not like they didn't have something to gain, did they?!) The insurance agency mafia also gained a TON out of this by pushing the need for malpractice insurance. The two, lawyers and insurance agencies had a great deal to gain from this and it was a lovely marriage where they both benefitted tremendously! Granted, the greedy, gullible patient got a bit out of it too, so he wasn't crying, but the only one who was the real victim was the physician, for being nothing more than just plain human!!!
Granted, there are indeed true causes of neglegence, but it's really got to be very blanted cases of this like the guy who gets the wrong leg operated on, or whose doctor comes in with a hangover and puts the patient seriously into danger. These are really very worthy causes of neglegence and they deserve being sued by their patients and even losing their licence. But what about those cases where it's really a very honest mistake where the doctor wasn't any more at fault than any other guy who says Oops! Why is it that a doctor can be sued for making a mistake but we can't? How many times have we been clumsy or spilled something or even misspelled something? Granted, it can be a dire mistake in their case, but they are just as human as we are, afterall.
I've had situations happen with me that I had more than the right to sue some doctors here but they didn't purposefully put me into harm's way. There comes a place where I have got to recognize that this is a very rare disease and not everybody is going to understand how ti works, must less recognize the symptoms! I must be understanding of this fact and try to forgive those doctors, who in truly wanting to help me, ended up putting me into harm's path by accident! It wasn't their fault any more than mine that I've got this disease! Can you imagine what if they wanted to sue us patients who had these rare diseases that when something went wrong they sued us for having the stupid disease in the first place? And what about those patients who absolutely REFUSE to pull their heads out of the sand and then find themselves in troubld over their own neglect and irresponsibilitiy?! Why can't they sue us then? We too have to recognize our own responsibility in taking care of ourselves and making decisions! It's not right that it's so lopsided!!
But all of this, Lori, is what makes doctors so incredibly cautious in the States! How do you think you would be to have a patient who had a rare disease walk into your office that you had no idea about it or had even heard of it before and had reactions like Mt Vesuvious? Would YOU want to touch that patient, especially knowing that you are legally responsible for him???!!!
Try to take a look at this from their point of view, and how very difficult it is! They study for so very, very many years and when they FINALLY get out of school and are finally certified to practice medicine, they are in so way over their heads in debt it's not even funny! They will be paying off their school bills for the rest of their lives practically! And if they aren't extremely cautious they can not only lose their house and shirt with it, but even their career and livelihood, all because of a simple OOPS! After that, then what?! Their entire life's work is tossed down the drain just because they were human!!
I personally feel that it's unGodly and morally WRONG to sue doctors unless there is very blantent neglegence involved! These people dedicate their lives to finding means of healing and treating the sick and saving people from dying! They are trying to bless you and instead, you curse them, slap and spit in their faces for their dedication and hard work.
Sorry, Lori, this isn't directed at you, but it's one more area where I feel very strongly about. I've seen that this is one of the major reasons why we patients here in Brazil have a much closer relationship with our doctors than we patients do in the States and other countries where the lawsuit rate it high. We have been seriously duped into cutting our own throats with our doctors for by our slapping them with lawsuits, they back off and become cautious and afraid of their patients and this ends up hampering their ability to practice medicine. Sadly, we have to blame only ourselves for this trend!!!
Lisa