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Doing Harm by Doing Nothing
Doctors are supposed to be known for their commitment to “do no harm.” But is it possible to do harm by refusing to act?
Our medical community is not helping its patients to deal with the pandemic of fear and disease. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the very treatment which could save lives is being ignored, due to the timidity of doctors and hospitals:
Doses of monoclonal antibodies—Covid-19 therapies authorized for emergency use last month—are sitting unused in hospital pharmacies, even as cases surge across the country.
Hospitals say the rollout of the therapies has been stunted by a lukewarm response from infectious-disease specialists, who say they want more clinical trial data before using them on a regular basis. Medical centers are also grappling with a lack of awareness and interest from both the primary-care doctors who would normally prescribe the drug and patients who are offered it. And some places are dealing with a shortage of space and staff to administer the therapies.
So on the topic of the greatest current health threat in America, the medical community is wringing its hands:
‘To be really certain about the results, you need greater numbers,’ said Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious-disease physician at MGH and a member of the Covid-19 treatment guidelines panels at the National Institutes of Health and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
While doctors wait for greater numbers in the “results,” greater numbers of people are dying. These are the professionals whom we’re supposed to admire; we put our lives in their hands every day.
How many people will need to die, and how great must the numbers be, to try to save those who are most ill?
Published in Healthcare
I think you’re seeing – accurately – one of the effects of having government run health care. Few are willing to challenge their paymaster. We don’t have single payer healthcare but we have government controlled medical care – the feds picked the winners when ObamaCare was passed: it was the corporate hospitals and clinics. And, we’ve had 15 years of physicians trained to protocol and checklists.
Well said, EOD mom. And of course they’re really just protecting their rear ends–that liability thing.
Sometimes I think the government’s response to this pandemic is rooted in population control. Sometimes I think I might be right about that.
I don’t know about that, Drew. I think they are just in defensive, protective mode: what do they have to do to protect their reputations and avoid lawsuits? And frankly, they are probably as overwhelmed as everyone else and can’t imagine taking risks in this environment. And that is absolutely not acceptable. That’s why we pay them the big bucks.
Government malpractice authorizes medical malpractice.
https://stream.org/they-were-relentless-how-i-learned-respect-for-our-communist-media/
I just read this first-person piece by Mark Judge on the subject of using media for control. It’s well written and of course very personal because it’s his story. One sentence he repeats is a reminder of the strength of the totalitarian: “They are thorough, they are relentless and they are good at their trade.” Whether it’s the politician, the media, the “educator,” the artist and even the medical professional – they believe in their objective and they never quit.
They are also manipulative and condescending. Read this article by David Marcus in The Federalist about how Fauci treats us like children.
Has anyone ever successfully sued the government?
Their reputations are already trash. I don’t think they care as long as the media continues to give them regular tongue baths.
But, we recently learned that the CDC wants to let old people die for racial equity. That’s just euthanizing the elderly by some other means. Ezekiel Emanuel smiles.
There is now nothing the “medical community” can say that enough people will believe. They have so botched their response, so messed things up with this unprecedented, never before tried in the history of Mankind, no proof it will work, Shutdown(tm) that they are no longer believed.
I will not believe anything the CDC says at face value ever again. Or the FBI or IRS or any government organization. I have no trust left at all. Every single institution in America is run by liars only interested in the power of their institution. There is not one that actually cares about Americans, the institution’s mission or anything else. Even organized conservatism has thrown in with the democrats, like the Lincoln Project.
Everyone is lying. Everyone is in it for their own power and glory. No one is putting God and Country first. It is all about material power.
First they talk about too many old people. They’re too expensive. Maybe grandpa shouldn’t get that hip replacement if he’s not going to live too many more years, anyway. And we should think about whether people over age 75 should just go away, period.
Then they throw the country into covid-19 turmoil to protect the lives of old people.
Then, after Trump is not allowed to be re-elected, they decide (before backing off) that maybe old people shouldn’t be first in line for the vaccine.
I question their motives.
Well, except for those thousands of nursing home deaths. Those people were expensive, you know!
Bryan’s right. There’s not a single government institution that I trust. They took what little remained, set it on fire, and danced around the flames.
Fortunately Gov. DeSantis did not cave, and the elderly are the first in line. He is one person who gives me hope.
The important point was the turmoil. They got that. If you protect the lives of too many old people too well, there is no turmoil.
I characterize the year 2020 as the Year of the Big Lies.
Perhaps the year that the Big Lies were exposed for all to see.
Seeing is a choice. Half of people chose the lie.
It does seem the medical community is mostly broken. They jumped on the idea of induced comas and ventilators quickly and stuck with that for a long time. They were quick to bad mouth doctors using HCQ and other treatments and promote the corporate line of treat-the-symptoms in a hospital setting and wait for a vaccine. The doctor community seemed to go along with inflating statistics about deaths and promoting panic. Are so many just cogs in a corporate machine? Do so many hate the Orange Man enough to fail their patients? Are so many just sheep that are unable to speak their minds? Are they just so panicked that they can’t think straight?
Has any profession ever failed so badly over the course of a year? I can’t think of one.
We need to be careful in what we wish for. :-)
Fads sweep through medicine and education like ocean breezes. “The latest research” often turns out to be a fleeting success. Doctors and teachers are used to seeing these trends come and go over the course of their professional lives. I’ve been grateful too many times for doctors and teachers who stuck with the tried-and-true old ways of doing things to criticize the doctors who are hesitating to run with the latest covid-19 treatments.
We patients need to remember that the practice of medicine remains an art, not a science, and that the arts are far more complex than the sciences.
I’m excited about innovation and discovery and invention, but I’m also wary of it all–especially over the course of the last year with the covid-19 news stories that always contradict yesterday’s new and exciting discoveries. We are living in “yeah, but” times. :-)
I’m afraid that I agree with all you say, Don. I just wonder if we are being completely fair in lumping together the non-government medical community and the governmental medical bureaucrats. I think at this point, it might be impossible to make a distinction.
I see it as the year of the Great Unmasking. Trump and then the WuFlu have unmasked the reality.
Government has got its tentacles in every aspect of healthcare. So I’m not sure it is possible to make a distinction.
I agree with your points, Marci. But the medicines that are being offered, in many cases, are not new. They may not always be as effective as we would like–only time will verify that fact–but to ignore that they are available is a real shame.
We have socialized medicine. The government already spends most of the healthcare dollars.
“The great unmasking” is a good line. I do believe many of these issues are long standing, but many outed themselves during Covid. Teachers Unions, for example, aren’t even pretending anymore.
My own Covid experience showed me the outsized reaction to possibly getting covid versus the reaction when you get it.
I am especially infuriated with doctors not being more aggressive with pharmaceutical treatments for covid. These are the same people who ruined the lives of millions with their free hand with oxy prescriptions.
I am so disbelieving of everything I hear that I won’t even have a conversation about it anymore. Nothing is to be believed, so what’s the point?
Do masks work? How the hell do I know? I wear one when required – consequently I don’t go out much. If I catch covid and die from not wearing one in other circumstances, it’s just as well. I have no enthusiasm for living in a world as currently constructed, where every person is viewed as a threat.
Patients distrust their doctors these days mostly because they often do not have a long-standing personal relationship with the doctors who are treating them. This is truly sad, and it’s a side-effect of the managed-care system that has evolved in the United States and elsewhere.
The doctors I’ve had are excellent, and they have fixed things, cured things, or helped me live with things that have gone wrong. I would tell people to not be pessimistic or negative about doctors in general but instead, to keep trying to find doctors they can work with and they have confidence in.
The same principles apply to finding a doctor you can trust as apply to every other professional you deal with. There are a few who aren’t as talented or competent as the others, but most of them are good doctors who can and will help you. Patients need to keep looking until they find the doctors who are right for them, and they need to believe that those doctors are out there. Patients simply need to be persistent and goal oriented.
I like and trust my doctor. But when it comes to Covid, she is a cog – unable to even express an opinion counter to her administration company, insurers, CDC guidelines, etc.
Marci, I agree with you completely; I have terrific doctors and feel fortunate. But I’m talking about a systemic problem, when drugs are being ignored that could be useful. I don’t know who those doctors are who aren’t taking advantage of those therapies, but there are many that are not taking action. Maybe the communication system on availability of these drugs isn’t working. I don’t know what the explanation is. But when I have a medical bureaucrat saying that “greater numbers” are needed, how much will be enough? While he’s deciding, people are missing out.
I live in a mostly retirement community city and I find that my most of my docs really do not expect their “elderly” patients to question them. I always try to engage my docs in conversation with questions about my conditions, treatments, etc. Many seem surprised that I am knowledgeable, not only about my own problems, but about what is going on in the world in general. I recall at the beginning of the Wuhan crap having a talk with my radiation oncologist – he is of Chinese descent – about the origins of the virus and he was not at all defensive. He was just surprised that I was aware of the problems our local hospitals were having and similar issues. I just always talk to them to let them know that I have a clue as to what’s going on. Surprisingly enough I have found that the docs and nurses at my urgent care facilities are more open-minded.
I agree with this – but in theory only. My daughter and I were speaking of this last night. There was an ob/gyn who delivered many babies to moms at the school she attended as a child. I knew him personally and enjoyed his warm personality.
That said, I knew others who claimed that they would give birth at hime unaided before they turned to him. He had an uncanny knack for connecting with his patients and making them feel loved. But he was thought to be incompetent and a borderline murderer by others.
Hence my attitude of – I’d rather be treated by a competent jerk.
That said – few have the skills and knowledge to determine “competence”. It’s easy to see when a doc has screwed up in hindsight; not so easy beforehand or when you’re in the midst of a medical crisis.
Circling back to covid, the removal of all advocates for a patient has I’m sure led to some real tragedies. Am dreading my daughter’s scheduled C Section at the end of Feb.
Why is it wrong for doctors to be hesitant to use a new and relatively untested treatment? The article says that “infectious-disease specialists . . . want more clinical trial data before using them on a regular basis.”
That seems quite reasonable to me. Does it not seem reasonable to the rest of you?
If so, then the criticisms are unfair.
If not, then why do you think that you know so much more than these specialists? I certainly don’t know more than they do. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the skepticism is warranted, but it also doesn’t mean that the skepticism is unwarranted.
It is certainly difficult to figure out who to trust in the present circumstances. But that applies to the WSJ as well (the source of this story).