How John Edwards can make amends with the physician community

Here’s one suggestion:

I would like to know how much standing John Edwards has with the practicing physician community regarding any aspect of health care . . . Now if he did something bold, like apologize to the medical community for being part of the problem and donate his wealth to a charity benefiting health care providers with depression and substance abuse problems, he would get my attention.

If he did that, I’d listen to him too. Maybe.

Comments

Anonymous
Yes, why won’t John Edwards apologize for making the insurers of negligent physicians pay for the harm they’ve caused?
Next, let’s have prosecutors apologize to criminals for successfully prosecuting them for committing crimes.
Anonymous
So Kevin won’t listen to a guy, regardless of his ideas on Iraq, taxes, healthcare, social security, etc., because he was the lawyer for some victims of malpractice in cases Kevin has never seen a single medical record in?
That makes sense.
DR. MARY JOHNSON
Oh, anon, give me a frickin break.
If the good-ole-boys in North Carolina were not so selective about the criminals they prosecute, you’d have an argument. Edwards just hired a “head blogger” whose take on the Duke case is criminal in and of itself. And he’s so courageous (being a champion of justice and all that), he’s had no comment on cases right under his nose.
Edwards was a lousy Senator who had little time to listen to physicians (formerly-in-the-public-service-programs he champions) when they asked for his help. He was too busy running for President.
He’s also one of the architects of our current 30-plus percent C-Section rates . . . doctors running scared. Something else for those insurers (translation: us) to pay for.
Don’t worry. I won’t hold my breath on the apology. Don’t hold yours that doctors (under seige) will flock to support him.
Anonymous
“He’s also one of the architects of our current 30-plus percent C-Section rates . . . doctors running scared.”
Nonsense. Until 2004, unless you lived in North Carolina, 90% of the physicians in America had never even heard of John Edwards.
Doctors “under seige”. What a joke. On average, less than 5% of a physicians’ overhead goes to liability coverage. That’s not a very effective seige. Get over yourself.
And are you really using one prosecutor’s in one city in NC’s bad decisions to defame the hundreds of prosecutors across the state? Can we pick one bad doctor and do that?
Anonymous
Clinicians continuing to gripe about junk science when they are defendants. Come back again when the junk science providers are out of the PI business, the criminal defense business and the criminal psychiatric assessment business.
Anonymous
I enjoy the irony of doctors demanding that Edwards apologize when you yourselves refused to even entertain the idea behind “Sorry Works”.
DR. MARY JOHNSON
I’m not demanding that Edwards apologize. You see, I understand that he’s a lawyer and that’s the LAST thing lawyers want to do.
Sorry does work. Too bad the lawyers have made it IMPOSSIBLE to say.
I almost forgot. READ the link. I’m talking about TWO prosecutors and TWO different cases presenting flip sides of the same theme in NC (where, God help us, the newspapers do nothing but cram pretty boy down our throats): those “ordinary people” Edwards says he champions are SOL in his own home state and he has no opinion (and did not help when he could). But you’re so quick to defend Edwards’ heels you weren’t paying attention.
Ah, the courageous anons will change the world.
Anonymous
Is a doctor really lecturing another profession about contrition?
Mary, your posts make no sense.
DBR
“I enjoy the irony of doctors demanding that Edwards apologize when you yourselves refused to even entertain the idea behind “Sorry Works”.”
I don’t know who yet another Anon. means by “you yourselves” in this inane statement, because doctors and hospitals all over the country have embraced the principles of Sorry Works! and physicians have been among its most vocal and ardent supporters….so who did you mean?
Oh….and I don’t think there’s ANYTHING John Edwards can do to “redeem” himself with the physician community….
Redhawk
Funny, but I have yet to meet a single chronic pain patient who has ever received an apology for being abused for years by doctors.
I guess being given a lifetime sentence of torture doesn’t qualify as being apology-worthy
The medical profession demanding an apology from someone else. Now that’s a laugh.
Anonymous
This physician went to John Edwards website and was willing to see what he had to offer on healthcare and take it on it’s merits. What I saw was Hilarycare c. 2007 and, comming from a trial lawyer, sanctimonious statements about healthcare being more expensive and less efficient in America.
The reason this posture rankles is the sheer hypocrisy of it. The legal system here is of, by, and for the lawyers, is far more expensive than anywhere else in the industrial world, and brutally unfair to those without deep pockets or small claims.
Edwards himself has gotten wealthy off one of the most dysfunctional aspect of our healthcare system–an extremely unfair liability system that awards the few (and their lawyers) with pitiful looking impairments huge sums of money while ignoring the majority of victims and being too random and capricious to do anything to improve quality. This system which he got rich off of, furthermore is one of the drivers of the high cost.
If he had acknowledged that and linked meaningful medical malpractice tort reform with his suggestions for healthcare reform, I would feel obliged to grant him a fair hearing. As it is, I try, but it is hard to see with all the hypocrisy flying around.
Oh yeah, and what is this “Chicken in every pot, I’m for the poor man” demogogery from the guy with the 28,000 sq foot house?
Anonymous
” The legal system here is of, by, and for the lawyers, is far more expensive than anywhere else in the industrial world, and brutally unfair to those without deep pockets or small claims.”
How did you come to the conclusion ours was the most expensive in the world? And we’re actually quite fair to people with small claims, as every jurisdiction has a small claims where people go in there and represent themselves frequently.
“an extremely unfair liability system that awards the few (and their lawyers) with pitiful looking impairments huge sums of money while ignoring the majority of victims and being too random and capricious to do anything to improve quality. “
It’s not the job of the legal system to improve quality. Its only job is to compensate those injured by negligence. It’s the medical system’s job to improve its own quality.
“If he had acknowledged that and linked meaningful medical malpractice tort reform with his suggestions for healthcare reform,”
If by “meaningful” you mean caps (which are the only proposals that ever go anywhere), that’s neither meaningful nor particularly useful to the overall goal of healthcare “reform” (whatever that is).
DR. MARY JOHNSON
Yeah, I make no sense.
Sorry certainly DOES work. But under our current system, what would happen to any physician who just apologized for anything without the consent of 14 lawyers and a global release first?
Like I said, I am not demanding that Edwards apologize. I know it’s a lost cause.
Just like I hope and pray his Presidential campaign will be. Then he can go back to his 28,000 square-foot Kennedy-wannabe compound and write another self-serving book on “son-of-a-mill-worker” makes good.
I 100% agree that the medical system does an absolutely crappy job of policing its own . . . my own sad whistle-blowing story is evidence of that. Of course, the legal system does an even MORE crappy job.
Until the light bulb goes off and the political geniuses link “tort reform” with a total overhaul of medical peer review (aka: secrets and lies) . . . until everyone admits that, in some fashion, they’re wrong – and agrees to give up a piece of their pie . . . nothing is going to change.
DBR
Redhawk,
First – I’m sorry for your chronic pain…
I’m curious, though…did doctors cause your pain somehow, or have they simply been unable to find a way to give you relief? Or have government regulations and fear of prosecution for overprescribing tied their hands? How have the doctors who are trying to treat you “abused” you, and if their inability to help you is a product of…well, lack of science or fear of prosecution, why when would they owe you an apology?
MANY doctors have been finding that sincere apologies are what a patient is really looking for when something goes wrong – sadly, those in states without apology protections are afraid that an apology will translate into a malpractice verdict….
Anonymous
Let’s see Edwards propose a medical malpractice tort reform that will promise that 100%, rather than 1%, of the victims of malpractice will be compensated, is affordable, and doesn’t reduce the availability of healthcare.
Of course, no trial lawyer is going to that, because actively working to bring all victims into the system–not just the bitter, unforgiving, or greedy ones–will force them to admit that considering loss of libido to be 500,000 dollars in compensation is simply no longer teneble with so many more victims applying, and eliminate their ability to get rich with just a handful (or one) dramatice case.
But until he does tackle this problem with his system, his credibility is debatable. First ake the beam out of your own eye brother before you start digging around in mine.

How John Edwards can make amends with the physician community

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