"What has become of a profession which repeatedly fails its most important client: the patient"

[Triana]

...while profiting from the hapless same?"

_ _ _ _ _

...

Michael Jackson's death is already a fading memory despite an acute expression of global despair as we witnessed the untimely extinction of a supernova. For physicians, struggling against a climate of national examination in this era of healthcare reform, there is a distinctly darker anguish which must finally be examined, an anguish which has been little discussed in the public arena. What has become of a profession which repeatedly fails its most important client: the patient, all the while profiting from the hapless same? At a time when an entire industry stands accused of cavalier profiteering, this is an important question to consider.

Michael Jackson was a patient failed by those who attended him. Even though some (including Jack Kevorkian in a recent article here on HuffPost) may argue that 'he got what he wanted", the discovery of propofol in his home brought our profession to new levels of mercenary depravity. Physician colleagues expressed shock and disbelief. Patients in consultation talked about their fears of becoming dependent on sleep aids, sometimes even referring to Michael's cautionary tale. The cumulative pain from these decades of assaults on Michael's privacy, identity, and self, all contributed to the erosion of his identity. Was it any wonder the man would be in severe psychological pain from his first memories until perhaps his last hours? The accounts of a desperate insomniac entertainer craving propofol-induced 'sleep' were, to me, the most staggering salvo in the final, painful ballad of a dying star. Propofol lullabies in an unmonitored, non-sterile bedroom could be no more certain a prescription for death than a smoking gun.

MY comment - ie: our tabloid vulture media and the mob-mentality vulture-culture that feeds it helped drive him to his reclusion, addiction and insomnia, and a profiteering (above all else) "health care" system helped drive him over the edge into death." Dr. Murray was, after all, obviously more concerned with the profit and prestige of being Jackson's "doctor" than providing good care within reasonable and responsible guidelines.

...

"As physicians we would do well to remember the Hippocratic Oath of first doing no harm. Clearly in the misery of his sleeplessness, his physicians betrayed the most basic of ethical boundaries. They put self interest ahead of patient interest. Sadly, the icon had become the golden goose for failing careers. These physicians too suffered from the drive to consume and appease an insatiable appetite for cash, celebrity and personal gain. My profession failed a national treasure, no matter how disordered, and failed him in pursuit of personal greed. We failed in his diagnosis, in his treatment, in disengaging from the dance with a manipulative addict and ultimately failed in the recognition of a critically important sleep disorder. Let us not fail in his wake to examine the lessons to found in the debris of destruction and share them with Americans everywhere."

--Qanta Ahmed
Physician, Author


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/sleepless-supernova-propo_b_304820.html

[Warpy]

1. Non sterile wasn't the problem

Non monitored and unattended were the problems. He should have had an oxygen saturation monitor with an alarm, at the very least. The doc should not have left him alone until the drug's period of action was over, and even then, that monitor needed to be left attached.

Health care delivery isn't the problem for most of us. We can't afford a high flying Dr. Feelgood and so we're not at risk for what killed Jackson. What is a problem for us is access to insurance that protects us against the high cost of catastrophic illness. What is a problem for us is an insurance industry that has been acting in bad faith for many years, playing god and deciding who should live and who should be written off to die.

[Triana]

2. Agreed RE: Sterility

However the culture of greed and providing "health" care based on how much profit one makes from it (or denying it based on how little) is part of the problem with the health care system in the US (it's profit-based) - and it was the problem with "Doctor" Murray's judgement, which was obviously clouded by same - I think that's where and how the author of the article ties the two together - and it is true than in both situations (for-profit health care provided by insurance companies and in Murray's case) - the problem was that the "care" provided was based on profit - how much money could be made off the deal. Whether it's an insurance company or a "Doctor Feel Good" that needs a golden goose like MJ as a financial saviour and will give him anything just to get paid - the basic problem is the same - and that problem is profit-based care.

[scentopine]

3. Most important client = CEO and BOD shareholders

The popular plan to grind up the bones of these traitorous CEOs, seal them into a space capsule and point it at the sun for fuel where they may have a chance to return something useful to society is considered too dangerous by leading scientists. Those cold bastard hearts would turn the sun black.

The soul of the Wall Street executive is the most toxic substance on earth.

[Triana]

6. I agree w/ you 100% n/t

[demigoddess]

4. you will notice that British stars who are allowed privacy , at least overseas,

live longer, happier lives for the most part. At least fewer of them are drug addicts and plastic surgery junkies.

[Triana]

5. It's true that...(or it seems) that in the US, big stars are persecuted by tabloid media

(and just media in general) much worse than they are overseas. There seems to be a bigger market for tabloid trash (and the resulting hatred of tabloid junkies who believe the shit) HERE than anywhere else in the World.

For instance, the album Invincible was hardly played here due to "allegations" in 1993 and later (though the man was later aquitted on all charges in 2005 - the media decided he was guilty the minute any allegations came to light and before the trial was even over so that's what lazy people believe). Whilst overseas, people either didn't pay attention to the bullshit, or their media didn't have the lies and sensationalism on 24x7 like they did here, so the album did better - and THEY know better. The album however, CONTRARY to media contention, did quite well in spite of it all. PLATINUM is hardly a "failure".

In general, even now, those overseas - in ALL other parts of the world - KNOW what "not guilty" means - and they know trash tabloid sensationalism when they see it and they can somehow find FACTS for themselves. But here? No such. And the tabloid media is STILL putting out trash every day with the words "bizarre", "weird", "Jacko" in it. Of course they put out Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Fox "News", and Glenn Beck - as serious "journalism" too. Bwah!

ABC, CNN and MSNBC et al (with few exceptions) is on the same level here in the US as Jerry Springer and The National Enquirer. Not a dime's diff between tabloids and "news" media. It's all "infotainment" with the primary objective being corprat profit - NOT facts or truth or information beneficial for the public - so that they can be more informed voters, for instance. In fact, informed voters is the LAST thing the corprats want. (GUESS who owns the media here? Corprats.)

As a result, and because of the media, (at least partially) this is one HATEFUL, IGNORANT, judgemental country - the media serves them up what they LIKE (tabloid garbage) and they feed on it and base their world view upon it - and their view of their celebrities upon it - tearing them apart limb from limb on a daily basis. THEN - they MARVEL at the point the celebrity becomes a recluse, paranoid, or drug addict in order to cope with the constant persecution - and label them (or CONTINUE labeling them) "whacko" - Yea. Well GUESS WHO helped drive them to it? NOTICE HOW THE MEDIA IGNORE THEIR OWN CULPABILITY in helping drive him to his reclusivity, addiction, and death? Of COURSE.

This media problem in the US is part and parcel of how we got so IGNORANT and LAZY that we ended up with George bu$h and Sarah Palin as serious political figures - secondary to having Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter and the like as serious media figures. One leads to the other in a pretty damned straight line, with ignorant sheeple too lazy to think for themselves and too quick to pass judgement on someone ELSE towing it between them.

The state of the "news" media in this country IS and HAS BEEN for at LEAST 25 years - a nasty, festering boil of PUSS upon the nation. WHEN is someone going to lance the belligerant thing already so we can have OUR SANITY back, develop SOME semblance of MORALITY (REAL morality), PRY open our IGNORANT, lazy, vacuum-packed minds, and STOP destroying INNOCENT people and DECENT political figures because of it?

It's quite sad and disgusting. From Michael Jackson to health care and every issue in-between - it's the goddamned fucking lame$tream ignorant tabloid-junkie driven media that has landed us (and HIM) in this place.

I H8 them.