While commuting home the other night, a colleague of mine got into a discussion with his seatmate about Howard Dean. The commuter told my co-worker, “I would never have voted for Howard Dean. One simple reason: he’s a doctor. Have you ever known a doctor to really listen to a patient? To really care about what a patient says?”
Just about everyone in the United States has faced—or knows someone who has faced—the devastation of a catastrophic illness. With it comes the added burden, almost as debilitating, of dealing with ‘healthcare’ bureaucracy.
What if a doctor understood that patients need an advocate? What if a doctor could relate to the difficult ordeal of trying to get well.
A proposal: a requirement during the final year of medical school should be to live with a family or individual that is facing a medical death sentence. The med student should be required to take on the role of advocate for the patient. The future doctor would be the individual assigned to dealing with the primary care doctor, specialists, labs, hospitals and insurance companies.
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