Doctors Behaving Badly– Again!

I read in the New York Times the other day (NY Times, Doctors Behaving Badly, 8/21/2015) that a medical journal decided to print a very descriptive essay recounting several incidents of flagrantly and morally obnoxious behavior by surgeons in the operating room.  The move by the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, is significant, and to be applauded “for shining a light on abhorrent behavior.” (Yes, count me as one who is applauding.)

My experience in 2009-2010 was so awful that I had refrained from talking about it.  In the first year after Ruth’s death, as I slowly let out bits and pieces of the story, I could tell from the responses of some that they didn’t quite believe my story and perhaps it was my grief that magnified the horror that wasn’t actually there. (“Doctors aren’t that bad!”) While horrible behavior by doctors is generally known to exist– and fodder for many medical dramas which the public watches as fiction– the ubiquity of it nationwide is not generally accepted (witness the heated effort to not change the status quo by many citizens).  Nationwide, the stories are often skillfully covered up in many ways– laws favoring the medical industry, a powerful lobby in Washington, and a code of silence among medical practitioners.

With that last point, it becomes evident why the publication by the Annals of Internal Medicine is significant. The journal editors said that after much discussion, they decided to print it because they wanted to “encourage physicians to call out colleagues who behaved inappropriately, and that they hoped it would ‘make readers’ stomachs churn,’ and ‘gnaw’ at their consciences.”

Critics, mostly from the medical profession, call the essay unsubstantiated because it was anonymous and without names.  However, the author originally submitted the essay with his or her full name; the editors then decided to hide the name, and by extension, the names of the victims and perpetrators.  The reason they gave was that they needed to protect the victims, which is legitimate, but I also suspect that it was to avoid a long extensive court case coming from those more powerful which the publication probably would not have had the money to win.

Of the top 10 professions sought after by psychopaths, “surgeon” is among the top 5 (The Top 10 jobs That Attract Psychopaths). Even if one uses “psychopathy” with its clinical definition, the connotation is not good.  (To be fair, “religious clergy” is also in the top 10 professions sought by psychopaths, a field I once participated in, and “doctor,” i.e. general practitioner, is among the top 10 professions least sought after by psychopaths.)  Another significant aspect of this list is that “CEO” ranks as the #1 most sought after profession.  When one thinks that medical practice and the protocols that run it are more and more created by MD’s who are also CEOs (and not the general practitioner), we are subject to a system that is getting increasingly sick.

Sure, psychopaths are evident in every profession and have caused substantial harm. Think of the recent housing crash caused by conniving financiers (called bankers in the old days) where millions of people lost their homes.  But whereas, many find it easy to accept that financiers can be chronically uncaring (their job is “money” after all), or that salesmen are obnoxious, they are reluctant to put the same status on doctors.  But in these six years after Ruth died, I have heard story after story from many circles of harm done.  It’s not that these incidents weren’t there before.  But now my ear is attuned to hear it, and increasingly, they are coming from “the inside.”

Before, the only way to get the truth out was through court.  But as the inefficiency of the medical care touches more people, the stories are coming out elsewhere.  Slowly, these stories are appearing in the press, and now in the professional journals themselves. It’s a trickle, but it’s a start.