What If We Treated Doctors The Way We Treat Teachers?

[kristopher]

I don't particularly subscribe to the argument being made, but given the issues of the day it seemed well worth sharing as a valid perspective being made with clarity.

What If We Treated Doctors The Way We Treat Teachers?
Shaun Johnson

A good friend and colleague who is now in Chicago first gifted me with this parable. It's been in my thoughts lately as my wife pursues her medical degree. In fact, she and I have talked about this at length, and when making comparisons between how physicians and teachers are treated, she is just as astounded.

Parallels are occasionally noted between medical training and education, especially the capstone clinical experiences present in both professions. Let us pretend that physicians of all specialties were held to similar measures of accountability and enveloped with the same kinds of discourses that we see in education reform debates. What might that look like, and how would the general public, in addition to doctors, feel about that?

It would not take a skilled social scientist to observe that, despite exceptional achievements in treating disease and diagnostic technologies, for example, the medical profession is failing. It has failed in its tasks to disseminate good information about health, quash misconceptions, fight corporations and health lobbies that keep people sick, and prevent high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, particularly in low-income populations. What do we do about this? Well, I have a few proposals listed in no particular order:

* We must begin to hold all physicians accountable, regardless of specialization, to certain quantifiable measures of health, namely cholesterol levels, blood pressure, weight, and BMI. All patients assigned to a physician must meet specific annual minimum standards of health. Bad doctors will be those who do not meet their patients' annual minimums, and they may be subject to certain penalties if the health scores of their patients do not improve in a reasonable amount of time.

* It will be mandatory for ...

Worth reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shaun-johnson/treating-doctors-like-teachers_b_812096.html

[corpseratemedia]

1. Gotta Be Coming Next!!

[LeftishBrit]

2. Sounds just like the UK under Blair.

[dkf]

3. So we couldn't sue Doctors for malpractice?

And they could keep their license to practice so long as they achieved tenure?

[truedelphi]

5. You know, the RW has long stated that the physicians in Europe

Are not sued for malpractice.

When they say that, they totally "overlook" the fact that since European nations provide the citizenry with life long medical care, people don't need huge lawsuits. If your doctor goofs up, and now you need medicine you didn't need before, you get it. Same if the doctor goofs up and now youneed a daily care attendant - the government provides it.

[dkf]

6. That makes sense. What do they do with doctors who keep screwing up?

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Doctors are sued

but not for some of the stupidity doctors are sued here for. And doctors who keep goofing off, in a serious manner loose their licences... clinical boards are far more involved than they are in the US.

One radical example, if tragic. A kid died south of the border from inhaling the chemical in cheese whizz. No I am not kidding. The parents, american, wanted to sue the supermarket. The judge threw it out of court... for wasting the court's time. In the States, I am almost willing to bet that suit would proceed;

Yes, this is extreme and they don't happen too often... but when they do... see Mickey Ds and famous hot coffee suit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Doctors are sued

but not for some of the stupidity doctors are sued here for. And doctors who keep goofing off, in a serious manner loose their licences... clinical boards are far more involved than they are in the US.

One radical example, if tragic. A kid died south of the border from inhaling the chemical in cheese whizz. No I am not kidding. The parents, american, wanted to sue the supermarket. The judge threw it out of court... for wasting the court's time. In the States, I am almost willing to bet that suit would proceed;

Yes, this is extreme and they don't happen too often... but when they do... see Mickey Ds and famous hot coffee suit.

[zazen]

4. I've used this argument numerous times.

But we get to treat teachers like errant children because they're primarily female, and we think of doctors as primarily male (and their industry is critical to the profits of health insurance vultures).

It's preposterous that we hold teachers responsible for every little developmental, social, psychological, and economic issue in a child's life, but so many doctors are let off the hook for egregious neglect on a regular basis. And it's not them so much as a system that processes patients through so that the doctors don't have enough time to provide much meaningful treatment.

If medicine becomes female dominated enough, maybe it'll lose enough status and we can start managing everything they do too. I guess we can start with nurses.

[Reader Rabbit]

9. I've seen the dentist-teacher comparison, but never the doctor-teacher one.

Great analogy. Think anyone will listen, though?