Post Author: David Penner

It’s the little things that can make or break the doctor-patient relationship

Patient
December 4, 2018

“The dermatology profession exists for the primary purpose of caring for the patient. The physician-patient relationship is the central focus of all ethical concerns.”
– American Academy of Dermatology, Code of Medical Ethics.

The doctor-patient relationship is one of profound importance and complexity. And while doctors in training often receive quality mentorship regarding their chosen specialty, many lack good mentors to guide them in the art of the doctor-patient relationship. This is …

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A patient’s open letter to aspiring physicians

Patient
October 6, 2018

As a patient who has had extensive dealings with five prestigious Manhattan medical institutions, I have taken the liberty of writing this letter from the perspective of one who has spent many long and arduous years in the underbelly of our deeply troubled health care system, and one who has seen firsthand how the doctor-patient relationship has steadily eroded over time. This relationship, so foundational to the practice of medicine, …

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The dismantling of informed consent is a disaster

Patient
September 26, 2018

Informed consent is the cornerstone of medical ethics. And every physician must defend this sacred principle from every form of evil that would seek to dismantle, degrade and debase it. If informed consent is the sun, then privacy, confidentiality, dignity, and trust are planets that go around it. For without informed consent, the descent of health care into amorality is inevitable, and the doctor-patient relationship is doomed to ruination, oblivion, …

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The way we treat young doctors is barbaric

Policy
February 12, 2018

The exploitation and bullying of medical students and residents can only be meaningfully understood in the broader historical context of the New Deal’s dismantling and the destruction of the middle class that has followed in its wake. Moreover, it is fallacious to look at this inhumane treatment as something that happens only within the confines of the medical profession. For these exploitative working conditions have in fact become the norm …

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Doctor-patient relationships would die without this one thing

Patient
January 14, 2018

As many readers are undoubtedly well aware, the doctor-patient relationship has a place of profound significance in health care. The critical importance of this relationship becomes magnified in oncology, where life hangs in the balance, and fear hangs over every soul that walks the invisible line between life and the everlasting night of undrawn death.

In the winter of 2015, a needle biopsy was performed on a mysterious tumor in my …

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An argument in favor of single-payer health care

Policy
January 5, 2018

It is the year 2018, and patients don’t always receive good care and doctors questions their career choice. How have we arrived at this tragic state of affairs? The answer is that our for-profit health care system is the principal cause — not only of poor patient care but physician burnout. Only a single-payer system, which is anchored in the idea that good health care is an inalienable right and …

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Are we living in a medical Zombie Land?

Patient
December 20, 2017

There is a strange and peculiar place in American society. Some say that when one enters this place, there are many odd-looking people walking about wearing white coats and wearing funny looking shoes. This place has a name. It is called Medical Zombie Land.

Entering into Medical Zombie Land for the first time, it is hard not to feel that one has been enveloped in a mysterious dimension of irrationality. Home …

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Is physician shadowing immoral?

Patient
November 6, 2017

Countless times as a patient both at two hospitals in New York City, I have witnessed doctors arrogantly waltzing into an examination room and arriving not alone but with an entourage. Like Greeks bearing gifts, they arrived with something unwanted and threatening: medical students, interns, residents, and fellows. And not once, in all the many times that I have been subjected to this ignominious practice, was my consent ever obtained …

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