Medical care is essential for everyone, and it is an obligation for society to dispense it openly. Nobody should be injured by lack of health care, not even animals. However, it is not a cheap and controllable commodity. The healthcare workers should have their rights like everybody else. They are no slaves to be scourged and rebuked when they fail. They need protection, not abuse. The public should be aware of that, and not treat them like work horses until they cave in under the weight of labor, and stress. How would you feel, if you were sued for any error or negligence you commit in your job? Should not the doctor that cares for you be entitled to the same decent acceptance? To err is human, and it should be applied to doctors, or you would be taking away their humanity. The reason the lawmakers enacted the “Good Samaritan law” is because they knew that suing a physician, after he mercifully stops to assist his fellow man on the road, would prevent them from doing it. Every treatment by a physician is a Good Samaritan action. He does not need to treat you, you need his help. Turning back against someone who is trying to help you is not a decent action, and should be prohibited, no matter what the outcome of the treatment is.

We should be able to recognize the signs of strain and fatigue, and not allow their task masters to punish them. The government, and the lawyers are hitting them hard, not realizing that it is not easy to come by more health care workers. They need to be treated with respect like any other professional. Yes, they are tired of being prosecuted, persecuted, demeaned, and used, and unless we realize this, we will meet with serious problems. The world already appreciates the efforts they put in love and unselfish human care, and we need to recognize it.
I am worried about the health care system. Recently, I searched the net about physicians in Greene Co. NY, and could not find a site that recognized any. I also found that in a county in Ga., a hospital had to shut down the only delivery room in the area, because the last obstetrician, who had been working alone, had to resign and moved to Oklahoma. These are ominous signs, and presume trouble in the near future. Many physicians are retiring early, and many are leaving states with high malpractice litigation and insurance cost. Many obstetricians are also refusing to perform deliveries, because of its high legislative cost, leaving the responsibility to midwives, who though less trained, are not held to the same degree of responsibility, and when faced with difficulty, revert back to the obstetricians. What is it in these statements that our lawmakers do not comprehend? Most of them are lawyers and benefit from the medical suits. They do not wish to listen to the grievance of the malpractice issue, until some medical catastrophe occurs.

Medicine is not a science, it is not easy to treat illnesses, and it is heart breaking to take care of suffering ailing people. We frequently forget that doctors are humans and have the same abhorrence to watch their suffering brethren. Yet they continue to do it, in spite of all the obstacles they meet. Nobody has ever said that doctors are immune from errors, and secured from making mistakes. They are human and as such will fail sometime, and may be more often. Nobody consults a doctor without worrying about the result of the treatment, and the surgery, not only because of the lack of available therapy, but because of the possibility of errors. Every patient signs a consent form, where it is stated that the cure and the safety of the patient is not guaranteed, but these contracts seem to be useless only in the case of medicine.
Like in any graduating class, any profession or occupation, there are always variable degrees of talents and skill. Some achieve better, and others lag. The same occurs in medicine. Usually 25% of the members of any organization are excellent or very good, and 25% may be good at what they do. However, we need to expect that some are not of the top. Many might have had a lesser education, an inferior training. There is even a probability that some have a lower IQ than others. In short, some may not be as capable as others, and may not perform as well.
To assure better health care, we might need to screen our medical students better, refuse those with a lower IQ, and just pick them up in such a way that their performance would be greater, though not guaranteed. We may have to sacrifice 25 or 50% of these physicians to attain that improved level of treatment, but in the same token we would have a shortage of doctors to treat patients, and it will cancel the effect of selection. We already have a shortage. There will never been enough physicians, that will all be proficient to the degree we want.
The choice is ours, either a larger number of physicians with variable range of ability like in all other professions, or a more limited number with a higher competency. We must understand that they are not animals to offend, to prosecute and demean for every little mistake or negligence. A grave error may be objectionable, and need litigation, but a simple oversight, or omission due to difficulties should not be punished.

In 1968, I started my practice in chest surgery, and my insurance was $ 1000/year, already costly at that time; but on retiring in 1998, it had become $ 60,000/ year, a real lofty jump in a mere 30 years, and one of the reasons I decided to retire. I am, sure that since then, the cost has gone higher, and that is why the doctors are unhappy. No matter how it is figured, a malpractice insurance of an average of $ 25,000/ year / physician is not something to be sneered at. It adds up and will be able to cover healthcare for many uninsured middle class citizens, instead of filling the pockets of lawyers.

We are interested in having a good number of doctors to treat us, so as not to have to wait for weeks for an appointment. We need to make them content, and happy to pursue their vocation. We do not wish to make enemies of those in charge of our well being. We must work with our doctors, our nurses and all our healthcare workers; because they are indispensable. We should not be on the side of the lawyers who are the only beneficiaries of the malpractice disaster. They, with the court system are costing us a fortune, which could be better invested in the treatment of those who are poor and unable to purchase any healthcare insurance. Instead of nationalization of medicine, with its very poor record in Canada and in Europe, let us join the physicians in their fight against the increased cost of care that has become like a lottery for the ones who might have sustained an injury. Yes, the legal system is costing us over 75 cents on the dollar of the malpractice industry between insurance companies, legal fees, and the court system. And when you consider the cost of it in the trillions, you can understand why the lawyers are so adamant to keep it going, for, as they say, the benefit of the public.

Remember this motto, which has been proven for centuries:" To err is human, to forgive divine." Let us not disallow the physicians their humanity, and forget their integrity, their joy of healing, their courage and their heroism and their love of learning for our benefit. Killing all these intrepid warriors will eventually hurt our chances to be humanly loved, treated, and cured by these heroic brethren of ours.