To ATS, do you believe ethical physicians exist nowadays?

I was just wondering what everyone's opinions are on physicians and their ethics. Does anyone have any stories about unethical physicians they have come into contact with and if so how they handled the situation? I am in my second year of medical school and I would love to become an ethical physician because I know there are many out there that abuse the field of medicine. I hate money with a passion and I believe it is the root of all evil. This thread is for you ATSers, I would like to hear your stories about horrible experiences with physicians, especially those that have not met your standards and expectations. I hope all is well.

extremely rare to find ethical doctors in western countries these days..

will be polite and refrain from further comment as dont wish to bruise over-inflated ego's...

Will you be making house calls after you graduate ?

Anyway , a now FORMER doctor refused to continue to see me as his patient when I had to seek immediate medical attention and could not get an appointment on his schedule . So I had to go to a walk in clinic and he took offense to that saying I should continue to see him instead . Then later his office sent paper work to me for a more private service at a higher price to have him back as my attending .

Epic fail on his prom queen attitude .

reply to post by Unvarnished


I must be lucky because I work with some of the best doctors......I would like to ask you however, can you give me an example of what YOU think is unethical, then I would have some point of reference...

reply to post by Starwise


Ethical in the sense of not overcharging patients, seeing them for their well being, any sort of misconduct in the hospital/clinic. Etc. things like that.

reply to post by watchdog8110


Of course I will be making house calls, doctors who ignore patients are the worst in my opinion.

reply to post by Expat888


Bruise away!

Most doctors today are shills for the pharmaceutical companies. Every doctor I've been to in the last thirty years was pushing pills. I stopped going to doctors about five years ago.

Originally posted by watchdog8110
Will you be making house calls after you graduate ?

Anyway , a now FORMER doctor refused to continue to see me as his patient when I had to seek immediate medical attention and could not get an appointment on his schedule . So I had to go to a walk in clinic and he took offense to that saying I should continue to see him instead . Then later his office sent paper work to me for a more private service at a higher price to have him back as my attending .

Epic fail on his prom queen attitude .

Yep, that is definately an epic fail. I would have told him where he could place it.......

reply to post by Unvarnished


Could you clarify something you wrote? I don't think you actually meant

I hate money with a passion and I believe it is the root of all evil.

First of all, the quote is "The love of money is....." Secondly, I'm sure you know you'll need it for paying staff, supplies, etc. Maybe even student loans?

But if you did mean what you wrote, you will have a very interesting career and should probably start taking notes for the book you should write about your life. It would inspire many young doctors, I'm sure.

reply to post by charles1952


Money as a concept phases me. One could not love money if money did not exist in the first place. With regards to loans, staff, I feel like in many other countries, education should be completely free. Money is just a means by which people eventually become separated from each other, which we currently see in America today.

remove all $ from medicine. heal to heal...Now we are at the front gate of ethics.


Would you like to open the door? Its really cool inside...you will be amazed. There is no disease or ailment and you can actually live to be around 300 years old

Originally posted by Unvarnished
I hate money with a passion and I believe it is the root of all evil.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"

- Atlas Shrugged

Originally posted by Starwise

Originally posted by watchdog8110
Will you be making house calls after you graduate ?

Anyway , a now FORMER doctor refused to continue to see me as his patient when I had to seek immediate medical attention and could not get an appointment on his schedule . So I had to go to a walk in clinic and he took offense to that saying I should continue to see him instead . Then later his office sent paper work to me for a more private service at a higher price to have him back as my attending .

Epic fail on his prom queen attitude .

Yep, that is definately an epic fail. I would have told him where he could place it.......

Give him the Dr. Proctor looking for that 2x4 he has up there and btch slap him in the process to boot .

Originally posted by Unvarnished
reply to post by Starwise

 

Ethical in the sense of not overcharging patients, seeing them for their well being, any sort of misconduct in the hospital/clinic. Etc. things like that.

I do love your idealism. I think that is why doctors become doctors to begin with.....then the real world hits you as a new MD.....you realize the truth. All hospitals and clinics are businesses. The businesses have policies and budgets etc....then there is the insurance companies and medicare and medicaid with all their rules and stipulations. Dont forget the evil entity known as JCHO who tells you when you can and what you and how you can doctorize your patients. Being a nurse I have seen so many MDs nearly hit their heads on the wall with all the BS they have to deal with.......

I love your enthusiasm for making house calls but I am almost certain that that will not manifest for you unless you cater to the rich who pay out of pocket.....

I have seen new doctors who years later become more jaded and literally throw their hands in the air and succumb to the system in which they have no power or control. The docs I work with are tired and jaded, but I have not seen anything unethical towards the patients....

Also pharm industries are no longer allowed to come in and get preferential treatment since now it is considered a conflict of interest. Of course that may just be at my hospital.

That was then to my previous , this was this last week when we were visiting a family member in the hosp . Lady doctor comes around and does her routine check for breathing with the scope then leaves , both my wife and I noticed the freaking huge chunk of diamond on her finger . What says classless than wearing a rock that size to work esp at a hospital , image massage or what .

Epic Fail #2 from Alberta doctors .

Yes, I believe ethical physicians exist.
However, they are being overloaded with patients, and bureaucracy.
I watched our family physician become completely beat-down spending more time on paperwork, than on patients.
He literally "lost his patience" with paperwork, and not being able to care for people.
He's a good man, that lost interest in being a doctor.
He could have hired more help. But was forced to take more medicare folks, at low reimbursement rates.
We were lucky to have had him for 15 years.

I think that, in order for you to be a TRULY ethical physician, you will need to face the fact that allopathic medicine for chronic diseases is inadequate, and in most cases the cure is worse than the disease. I find the best physicians use a combination of allopathic, natural, and homeopathic remedies.

I have several physician horror stories which I won't go into, but here is one worth mentioning:

In 1999, at the age of 39, I woke up one morning and felt like I had been beaten all over by a 2 x 4, especially my hands and the bottoms of my feet. All my energy had drained away. I went from a hyper, energetic young mother to being bedridden.

It hurt for people to even brush up against me. It was like the worst flu in the world. I thought for sure that I must be dying, because nobody could feel that sick and have that much pain, and not be dying.

Initial blood tests were worrisome, and I was told it could be lupus. Further blood tests ruled lupus out. I went to a rheumatologist, who was a woman so unpleasant and uncaring that I only saw her twice, once for the blood tests and once for the diagnosis.

She said that I most likely had fibromyalgia. She said, "There's nothing I can do for you, just take some advil. Good luck." I wanted to punch her out. She shooed me out of her office and that was that, hundreds of dollars later.

Every doctor I saw was concerned about me asking for pain medication. They didn't say anything about nutrition, supplements, physical exercise, or how my mental state was from having the rug pulled out from under my life overnight. I had two small children and a husband who didn't like to pitch in. I could barely get out of bed to use the restroom, much less do everything that I did before. Not ONE doctor gave a damn. They were so concerned about addiction and the DEA, they couldn't have given a rat's behind about me.

I went from doctor to doctor, frustrated, exhausted, and then, abandoned by a husband who said he didn't want an invalid for a wife, which only added to my stress level.

I did find a pain clinic, in which the doctor was nice, but he was an anesthesiologist by trade and so I ended up, at the end, taking the equivalent of 60 vicodin per day, along with a cocktail of other antidepressants, sleeping pills and tranquilizers. I started to worry that I wouldn't wake up in the morning. I became heavily addicted to several substances and was unable to perform the simplest task. My kids were running wild and I thank God nothing happened to them while I was incapacitated.

I walked into the pain clinic one day, put all my pills on the counter and said I wanted off of this insane merry-go-round. The doc warned me the withdrawal would be terrible. I said I didn't care, so he gave me some librium for a few days and something to keep my blood pressure from skyrocketing while I was withdrawing.

I did go through that, no need to detail how dreadful it was, but I pulled out of it and that was the end of my trying to alleviate the symptoms and only creating a new disease.

I started to educate myself, especially after the fibromyalgia turned into rheumatoid arthritis and my joints started to deform. I realized that my immune system was shot, so the only way to treat it was to boost my immune system with vitamins and herbs. I also realized that, although it is painful to start moving with this condition, move you must, otherwise you only hurt worse, so I started walking and trying to move as much as I could.

Fast forward to years later. I am in a small town, and I see a P.A. at a local rural clinic. The only problem I haven't fixed is my ability to sleep through the night, so I do need medical help with that. He is such a cool "doc", he listens, and we discuss all issues relevant to my problem. Sometimes he'll talk with me for an hour, but that's because we're in the middle of nowhere and he's got the time. It only costs me $40 per visit.

I have taken charge of my health, and I use doctors as prescription pads. But I have learned that, when it comes to chronic illness, western medical doctors are horribly underinformed, and the drugs they push to kill the immune system in order to kill the symptoms, rather than help your body to fight it, are almost criminal in the way they further destroy the body and leave one open for cancer and opportunistic infections.

You wanna be a good doctor? LISTEN, look at the whole patient and not the symptoms, and incorporate non-allopathic remedies. Teach WELLNESS. Don't be like the one doctor I saw who said to me in disgust, after seeing me limp in with hands and feet swollen like balloons, "Oh, what's wrong with you now!!"

reply to post by Unvarnished


I posted on your other thread giving a condensed account of what happened to my husband. Ethical does not off people for a job.Ethical does not abuse trust. Ethical does not cover errors as "professional courtesy". I believe ethical doctors exist like I believe sasquatch exists, someone may have seen one, but I haven't in more than thirty years. I hope that you can make a difference but be advised that it will be the fight of your life. I would like to recomend a book I found after my husband's murder, it's title is "Before You Take That Pill". I've lent it to a friend and don't have the author's name at the moment.

Just a short anecdote:

My ex-bro-in-law started out with the most altruistic of intentions.
He was really gung-ho during school, and had decided that the best, most needed place for him, was as an ER Doctor.
He finished school (very well) and went into administration.

My opinion, after watching this transformation, is that you are taught, indoctrinated; that you are the smartest most wonderfullest shining turds to ever bless this earth, and are expected to conduct yourself as though no one but yourself is worthy of your own attention.

Again, My opinion.

I don't think any less of him than I do those from any other profession, who's been forced to abandon their pure ideals; and become what they once thought they could cure.

I liken it to those cops you see pepper-spraying the protesters. Do you think when they were kids, playing cop, that they thought they would ever do what they've done?

How far is that really; from what's going on in the medical profession?