1) My take is that the physician-only sites like Sermo and iMedExchange have fantastic, illuminating discussions that I read on a daily basis. Some of the gripes and stories relayed behind closed doors offer the most honest look at what’s wrong with health care today. Part of me wishes that the public would be invited to see what’s being said, so they can get a first-hand taste of what some of the bewildering and ridiculous issues physician face every day.
2) My take is that it’s hard not to be inspired by Barack Obama. He has an undeniable charisma and one of the best orators I’ve seen in awhile. I have read several conservative blogs experiencing “cognitive dissonance” when talking about Obama: they like listening to him, but disagree with many of his policies. As an independent (with admittedly conservative-leaning tendencies), I can understand where they’re coming from.
3) My take is that Obama has a point about individual health mandates. No point having them if the premiums are too high. Massachusetts is finding out that there still will be always be a subset of the population uninsured despite how hard you try to enforce the mandate.
4) My take is that the Super Bowl will be a blowout: New England 45, New York 14.
5) My take on the CBS piece last night about Carmelo Rodriguez, the 29-year old diagnosed with melanoma, was that it was emotionally devastating and blatantly one-sided. What the physicians did was inexcusable, but revoking the Feres Doctrine is going too far. As commenters have noted, it is difficult apply civilian physician rules to a wartime military environment. I also agree that if you could sue military and VA physicians, you will see a mass exodus of physicians, further worsening an already critical doctor shortage to treat the troops.
Related posts:
- Is Obama serious about medical malpractice reform?
- Military medical malpractice
- Health care and the military
- Should you become a military doctor?
- Brain scans to measure the effectiveness of Super Bowl ads
- Can watching the Super Bowl cause you to die?
- Are drug ads worth it during the Super Bowl?
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Sermo serves as a doctor zoo. Subscribers pay to gape and laugh at doctors. Government agency thugs may subscribe.
Does Sermo still have its friendly Terms of Service?
http://www.sermo.com/about/terms
Unless changed, by signing them you pledged your assets to reimburse them for any legal costs from your conduct. You agreed they had intellectual property rights to the content of your message. So if you describe a new invention to get opinions from colleagues, they may have rights to it. If someone uses your name, causes some infraction, you are responsible for the damages. That is true even if you never joined in reality. A Mexican med student timed it. In 5 minutes, he got the name and state license number of a real doctor, and joined as that doctor, with a nickname he gave the doctor and a secret password. The real doctor may not have heard of Sermo. If he had, he could not access his own account, because the med student had the password.
Most shocking of all?
Affiliation with the AMA.
http://www.sermo.com/about/partnering_opportunities/current_partners
I agree with the guy posting about Sermo. It just seems like a bad idea to me to join that thing.
Also, regarding the original blog post, I agree that opening the federally employed docs to malpractice suits would result in a mass exodus.
Those medical environments are just medical disasters waiting to happen for a physician. You don’t really have any control over so many factors, and you have so many decisions…ones which in the civilian world would largely be completely up to you…dictated to you by folks whose sole qualification resides in their rank and/or seniority.
So, you’re the physician. Your practice is largely dictated to you by some high-rank RN, or worse, some high ranking person with NO medical background or training.
But as the physician, it is you who will be the target of any liability suit.
Of course there would be a mass exodus of physicians from such a system.
But now, here’s the real question that should be asked. Rather than opening up the federal physicians to easier lawsuits, shouldn’t we perhaps be looking to giving civilian physicians the same protections enjoyed by the feds?
Just a thought.
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