Here in Toronto, there is an intermittent radio show called "White coat, black art"
about being a doctor nowadays or the dilemmas of the health system in Canada. The whole accent is about how difficult is to navigate the current medical problems when in fact, almost everyone is more interested about the ethical questions, economic factors (why some procedures are supported or not) and obviously the transparency of the personal skills of the medical staff. The public services are served as a "block" for everyone when the reality is that it counts on whose hands are you under medical care.
What is not touched in any way (the guest making the show is a doctor) are conflictual and controversial views about doctors. The show is mostly about raising big questions, not touching constant slippage of the system and the self-empowerment of the job due to the social contract of how the doctors and the medical system are provisioned in Canada's economy.
In this post I want to touch one aspect that I have not seen it discussed in media, "the priest of big pharma" role of the doctors. There were many instances where drugs were pushed too early in the market and the side effects downplayed by the whole medical system. We can compare them with slippages in "quality control" of the car manufacturers when cost litigation were preferred to just shutting down production of a defect and dangerous car - the pharma companies prefer to be on the market (even for in-conclusive drugs) than to totally withdraw them from the market.
In most of those situations, where drugs are pushed in the medical practice through not normal practices (and there are a lot of cases with conflictual adoption of not proved drugs) the doctors are simple "priests of big pharma". The big difference is the incentives they are getting to push on patients a new procedure or drug, even if there are doubts about drugs usage and side effects.
That is one aspect of being "indoctrinated" or "convinced" by the benefits or using a new drug for your own patients - economic reasons hidden in different facets (free access to retreats, conferences, etc..) or even funds to research in the same domain for the benefit of the same named company.
There is also the "hic sunt leones" situations, the borderline cases where the doctor becomes a simple priest for the pharma companies: their role as healer stopped and are just blind guiding patients in unknown territories. The doctors are the ones coming back with notes and observations and (possibly) some enlightenment for the company. I was a witness as well along with one member of my family undergoing such an extreme treatment. Our prayers just raised into an emptiness of the sacred, the doctors were simple guides and observers, sometimes sympathetic to the human toll.
What struck me at the time was the primitiveness of the tools used to gather informations about our case and also my rhetoric question that in this time and age, our unique experience was or not shared for others' benefit. My fear was the big-pharma is closed more then the church was to sharing what happens with their experiments, with the complicity of the doctors/priests.
about being a doctor nowadays or the dilemmas of the health system in Canada. The whole accent is about how difficult is to navigate the current medical problems when in fact, almost everyone is more interested about the ethical questions, economic factors (why some procedures are supported or not) and obviously the transparency of the personal skills of the medical staff. The public services are served as a "block" for everyone when the reality is that it counts on whose hands are you under medical care.
What is not touched in any way (the guest making the show is a doctor) are conflictual and controversial views about doctors. The show is mostly about raising big questions, not touching constant slippage of the system and the self-empowerment of the job due to the social contract of how the doctors and the medical system are provisioned in Canada's economy.
In this post I want to touch one aspect that I have not seen it discussed in media, "the priest of big pharma" role of the doctors. There were many instances where drugs were pushed too early in the market and the side effects downplayed by the whole medical system. We can compare them with slippages in "quality control" of the car manufacturers when cost litigation were preferred to just shutting down production of a defect and dangerous car - the pharma companies prefer to be on the market (even for in-conclusive drugs) than to totally withdraw them from the market.
In most of those situations, where drugs are pushed in the medical practice through not normal practices (and there are a lot of cases with conflictual adoption of not proved drugs) the doctors are simple "priests of big pharma". The big difference is the incentives they are getting to push on patients a new procedure or drug, even if there are doubts about drugs usage and side effects.
That is one aspect of being "indoctrinated" or "convinced" by the benefits or using a new drug for your own patients - economic reasons hidden in different facets (free access to retreats, conferences, etc..) or even funds to research in the same domain for the benefit of the same named company.
There is also the "hic sunt leones" situations, the borderline cases where the doctor becomes a simple priest for the pharma companies: their role as healer stopped and are just blind guiding patients in unknown territories. The doctors are the ones coming back with notes and observations and (possibly) some enlightenment for the company. I was a witness as well along with one member of my family undergoing such an extreme treatment. Our prayers just raised into an emptiness of the sacred, the doctors were simple guides and observers, sometimes sympathetic to the human toll.
What struck me at the time was the primitiveness of the tools used to gather informations about our case and also my rhetoric question that in this time and age, our unique experience was or not shared for others' benefit. My fear was the big-pharma is closed more then the church was to sharing what happens with their experiments, with the complicity of the doctors/priests.
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