Bad doctors
Watched Fifth Estate on Wednesday. It was about a ob/gyn who had harmed a lot of women. The class action lawsuit currently has about 300 women involved. Unnecessary hysterectomies, infections undiagnosed and the like. The hospital knew what was going on but did little. The complaints that went to the College of Physicians and Surgeons resulted in his retraining, which was a communications course.
Several things occurred to me.
1. You can't just trust someone because s/he's a doctor. This just doesn't occur to many people. A medical degree is somehow seen as proof that the person is close to omniscient and completely ethical. You can teach ethics, but you can't impart them, and medical training does not cover many things that people ask doctors about (e.g. parenting). Some doctors are just bad. Some have beliefs and practices that are out of step with best practice. It's bad enough that some people don't bother to be caretakers of their own health and think instead of just being blindly lead. It's worse when doctors react with righteous indignation when they are questioned. How did it happen that a simple profession is held up to much higher esteem than it deserves?
2. It seems like a lot more women are subject to malpractice than men. I have no stats to back this up, it just seems like a lot more women get bad care, especially gynecological. There seems to be an attitude towards women and their machinery that is cavalier. Why so many hysterectomies in general? Can you imagine them castrating men at the same rate that they yank out women's organs? Medicine tends to be patriarchal, and I think men tend to get more respect from doctors.
3. The public has to be protected from reckless professionals. And here I will incriminate my own profession - social work. Did you know that in Manitoba, anyone can just declare themselves a social worker? If you want to be a registered social worker you must meet certain qualifications. But unlike doctors and nurses, in Manitoba you do not have to be registered to practice. That means that a shoddy social worker cannot be disciplined and have his/her license revoked because there is no license. Considering the power that being a SW can wield, this is inexcusable and needs to change. (And yes, I will be choosing to get registered when we can afford it.)
Several things occurred to me.
1. You can't just trust someone because s/he's a doctor. This just doesn't occur to many people. A medical degree is somehow seen as proof that the person is close to omniscient and completely ethical. You can teach ethics, but you can't impart them, and medical training does not cover many things that people ask doctors about (e.g. parenting). Some doctors are just bad. Some have beliefs and practices that are out of step with best practice. It's bad enough that some people don't bother to be caretakers of their own health and think instead of just being blindly lead. It's worse when doctors react with righteous indignation when they are questioned. How did it happen that a simple profession is held up to much higher esteem than it deserves?
2. It seems like a lot more women are subject to malpractice than men. I have no stats to back this up, it just seems like a lot more women get bad care, especially gynecological. There seems to be an attitude towards women and their machinery that is cavalier. Why so many hysterectomies in general? Can you imagine them castrating men at the same rate that they yank out women's organs? Medicine tends to be patriarchal, and I think men tend to get more respect from doctors.
3. The public has to be protected from reckless professionals. And here I will incriminate my own profession - social work. Did you know that in Manitoba, anyone can just declare themselves a social worker? If you want to be a registered social worker you must meet certain qualifications. But unlike doctors and nurses, in Manitoba you do not have to be registered to practice. That means that a shoddy social worker cannot be disciplined and have his/her license revoked because there is no license. Considering the power that being a SW can wield, this is inexcusable and needs to change. (And yes, I will be choosing to get registered when we can afford it.)
posted by Jude | 5:59 PM
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