Healthcare Should NEVER Be Free

Is Healthcare A Right?

Yes, Healthcare probably is a right, but it should never, ever be free

Now Dr. D is a Socialist (I’m not talking little ‘s’ Palin-calling-Obama-names socialist, but big ‘S’ from-each-according-to-means-to-each-according-to-needs Socialist) but he still believes medicine should never be free if we want to keep it.

So what’s a nice Socialist boy like Dr. D doing defending the financial exploitation of sick people?

Okay, now that I have your attention…

Rights and Responsibilities

If something is a Right then it must be someone’s Responsibility too.

We have the right to vote. This means someone is responsible to run a fair election and count the votes. We have the right to a fair trial. This means someone is responsible for maintaining an impartial court and providing a public defender. Make sense?

If Healthcare is a Right then someone is Responsible for funding and running an efficient healthcare system that cares for everybody... and that someone is Dr. D.

Dr. just paid about $60,000 to the US treasury and as a bleeding-heart he also did a lot of volunteering and giving to healthcare for the poor. (Dr. D puts his money where his Socialist mouth is!) Like most people with well-paying work, D contributes large percentage his resources toward the general welfare.

Dr. D is also the dude that gives away the free healthcare.

WTF, free healthcare in the USA?

Yep, if you are broke ER care is free by law.

News Flash to Republicans: Socialist Medicine has been here for decades! Doesn’t it just make you feel dirty?

If Healthcare is a right then Dr. D is the dude responsible, because over half my waking hours and dollars earned are spent providing that right. Actually, we are all responsible for it.

We're already providing free care—we’re just doing a piss-poor job of it:

Bad enough that Republicans are right to complain that our kids already owe China trillions of dollars we’ve wasted on healthcare.

Also bad enough that Democrats are right to point out that millions of uninsured are sick and dying without the care they need.

The current state of the healthcare system

So let’s think responsibly about this...

Human Nature Is a Bitch

We Socialists are big picture dreamers. We like to feel we do some good, without get bogged down in the details. Young D used to give a $10 to every homeless dude that asked. It felt good and kept me restricted to a diet of mostly ramen during school. Then I started working at homeless shelters and realized that the bills I gave usually ended up spent on crack. Giving a crackhead money isn’t responsible. Responsibility is a lot harder.

Are you comparing sick patients to crackheads? Yep!

We are all subject to the same rules of human nature. The problems of human nature affect everyone and always fuck up our brilliant plans. (This blog has spent considerable time dissecting how the foibles of human nature make doctors one of the most screwed up and difficult types of people you'll meet.)

Humans are naturally self-serving and take the path of least resistance.

We occasionally rise above our natures, but when we create a system we should expect people to generally act like typical human beings—and by ‘typical’ I mean jerks.

We guarantee the Right to vote and to justice, but because we recognize that human nature people lust for power we have to make a Responsible electoral and jury system that isn’t easy to cheat.

I’m in favor of giving free food to people that need it, but if I laid out a buffet of delicious food on the corner with a note that said, “Just take one plate, and only if you’re hungry.” It would likely all end in the trunk of the first person that drove by—even if that person already had a million in the bank.

Sorry, but human nature sucks! Why do we expect free medical care to be any different?

But people wouldn’t do that with medical care would they?

Dr. D sees it every single day: People call ambulances to bring them to the ER for runny noses and dry hands. People getting a free $1000 emergency room visit demand antibiotics for viral and then don’t fill what is prescribed. People come to the ER to get “checked out” just because there’s nothing good on TV.

Most people will treat anything that’s free like it’s worthless and waste it without even thinking. Just look what we did with this planet God freely gave us!

Free Stuff Has Consequences

Medical care actually isn’t free. It is really expensive. It takes a lot of resources and work to create even the simplest doctor’s visit. Somebody is responsible to pay the bills for free care, and even though Dr. D chipped in $60K this year, our kids are still in the hole for 14 trillion bucks.

A responsible system must be sustainable, and free-for-alls just aren’t sustainable.

The freeloaders also screw up system so it can't work for the people who actually need it. Dr. D gets to deal with a microcosm of this every time we don’t have space for real emergency patient because the ER is full with people who checked in because they were bored or lonely. It happens a lot.

Rationing Healthcare

Healthcare is a right. We owe it to our fellow human beings. We would be some sorry bastards if we just sat by and watched poor people die preventable deaths. We owe it to our kids to create a responsible and stable system to guarantee these rights. The only way I see that you could possibly have free medical care is if it is heavily rationed.

OMG, did Dr. D just say rationing? Get the pitchforks and torches! (BTW, I love how my Conservative friends get so worked up about rationing something they don’t want people to have at all.)

Human beings will frequently use their freedom to go all apeshit. We need to have someone responsible enough to prevent us from exercising our rights to the extent that we harm others.

We have the right to be free but we also have the police to arrest those who use their freedom wrongly.

But nobody wants a police state and nobody wants a free medical system that is constantly saying NO.

Totally free healthcare might not be as nice as you hoped.

What we really want is for people to restrain themselves. Some saintly folks may do this, but most of us will follow our baser natures to disastrous results.

Valuing Healthcare

Yeah Dr. D, but if human nature is really that shitty why doesn't everybody misuse their freedom and end up in handcuffs?

Sorry to bruise your college-educated ego, but it isn’t because you’re such a better person. You just have a whole lot of incentives to stop you before the handcuffs. Some are social incentives—you’d be ashamed to act out—but many are financial. Misbehaving will hurt you in the pocketbook.

Everyone has different values and motivations, but we all accept that money has some value. If we want universal access to medical care then it has to cost money.

It doesn’t have to cost much money. In fact healthcare is best if kept inexpensive. The “free market" cost of healthcare is a huge barrier to most people’s access. But there has to be some barrier. Drop the cost to $0 and you get a tidal wave of people wasting very costly care.

I guarantee that if every person who came to the ER had to pay $2 up front the number of frivolous visits would drop by 80%.


I’m not saying that no rationing will ever be a necessary, but if we insure healthcare has value to everyone rationing care will be the exception rather than the norm.

You want everyone to have healthcare? Never give it away for free!

Okay, Dr. D has managed to piss off both the Left and the Right!

The floor is now open to your comments. Just try and be civil with each other.

Next post Dr. D will studiously avoid politics and return to the regularly-scheduled programing on Doctor-Patient Relationships.

What Is Nice Patient Syndrome?

A reader writes:

"My doctor says I'm one of the nicest patients he's ever met. He says that really nice people always get the rare incurable diseases. How can that be?"

Oh no! You've got Nice Patient Syndrome! Your prognosis is grim!

There's only one cure: Do something horrible quick! And I'm not talking about saying a dirty word or two. It takes serious antisocial mommas-lock-up-your-babies-cause-there's-a-crazy-person-with-an-axe behavior to save you from the terrible fate of Nice Patient Syndrome!

Why would the nicest human beings end up with the worst diseases?

Ask any doctor, nurse, or therapist... We've all noticed it. The most saintly human beings any of us have met seem to be the ones that get the rare, miserable, and rapidly fatal diseases. We are all astonished at the sheer angelic goodness of these patients, and we tweet message after heartfelt message about how our patients heal our hearts than we could ever heal them.

Ever notice how this shit only happens to the nicest people?

Nice Patient Syndrome really does bring out the best in the assholish medical profession. We give hugs, we fluff pillows, we do bake sales in our spare time. Dr. D once bought a ton of medicines for a nice patient who couldn't afford them. After their untimely demise we go to the funerals of our nice patients and tell their relatives how we never met a better human being.

I'm sad to hear that your doctor thinks you are wonderful, because that means have a really scary disease.

And here's the real kicker: You aren't half as nice as all the doctors and nurses who are fawning over you think. And they aren't crying for you when their eyes well with tears—they're crying for themselves.

Mental Distortion

One thing you have to realize about healthcare workers is that all of us have been traumatized, whether we admit it or not.

Your average graduating medical or nursing student has seen as much death, pain, and misery as a soldier returning from a war. Most of us wouldn't admit that this affects us. In fact, we pride ourselves in not letting it get to us. "I'm a professional dammit, and telling the 3rd person this week that they've only got months to live doesn't keep me from doing my job professionally!"

We usually do a passable job of managing (suppressing) the emotional effects of our jobs. The first few dying or crying patients may have gotten to us, but we don't feel it anymore. We promise! Just another day at the hospital...

Many of the particular quirks of doctors and nurses are psychological defense mechanisms resulting from the mental trauma. Our experiences may turn us into jerks, but we'll turn patients with scary diagnoses into angels—either that or monsters.

Fear of Dying

Doctors and nurses cannot do our work if we're afraid, but it is anxiety-producing stuff we see every day. We are the ones that watch everyone suffer and die. We watch young and healthy people get awful diseases. We see miserable people that we just can't fix. We get the fact that everyone inevitably dies someday (and many deaths are not pretty) shoved in our face daily.

Watching strangers suffer and die actually isn't as hard as you'd think. The real mental anguish comes when we reflect that the same sort of thing will eventually happen to ourselves and the people we love dearly. Dr. D does a good job taking care of sick and dying kids, as long as he doesn't wonder if this might happen to Little D someday.

We need to find some way to think of you as different from us.

If you are totally different from us then whatever awful thing is happening you to won't necessarily happen to us.

I hate to admit it, but first we look for the bad in you. If you've made some shitty decisions in your life or you are rude or manipulative with us then we conclude you deserve it. "This sort of stuff happens to assholes like you—Karma, bitch!"

But if we don't find some reason to hate you we conclude that you must be a saint. You are too good for this wicked world! This burden was laid on you because only a truly superb human being like you could handle it.

"Look, we really need you to do this for us. You don't mind, do you dear?"

We'd rather admit you are better than us than to admit you're just like us.

We feel safe from the fear of ending up in your shoes as long as you are absolutely different from us. "That sort of terrible thing happens to assholes and angels but not normal dudes like me!"

The Complications Of Nice Patient Syndrome

There are plenty of advantages to Nice Patient Syndrome. If you are going to have an awful disease it sometimes isn't so bad to be surrounded by healthcare workers who think that they aren't worthy to be in the same room as you. Trust me, you've got it much better than the ones we conclude are assholes! We'll bend over backwards for you. You can and should milk this!

There are, however, disadvantages to being though of as the nicest patient.

• You aren't a real person to us. Your goodness we keep fawning over is a creation of our own mind.

• We tend to be paternalistic with "Nice Patient Syndrome" patients. We don't want to bother your pretty little head with the dirty details of your disease, so we just make the decisions for you.

• We expect you to handle pain bravely. All that goodness makes you more resistant to pain than mere mortals! We rave about your fortitude in the face of pain, and you want to keep our respect so you won't tell us how much you're hurting.

• When we do treat your pain we will knock your ass out! We adore you so much that if you do mention you're hurting we might Michael Jackson you by accident.

• You actually aren't what we imagine you are. We sometimes send people to meet their maker convinced they have far purer souls than they actually do. You are yourself—the good and the bad. Don't buy into our delusion!

How To Handle Your Sainthood

Rule #1: Don't try and convince us that you are a normal person. Sure, you are just trying to be humble, but insisting you have flaws is actually very threatening to us. If you are just like me then whatever scary thing that is happening to you could just as easily happen to me.

"I think the world of you Mr. Smith. That's how I keep from wetting my pants when I read your chart."

You can't change us. We are damaged goods.

We are frightened by your suffering and Nice Patient Syndrome is a deeply-rooted defense mechanism that isn't going away.

If you try too hard to prove you have faults you might suddenly get labeled the asshole patient that deserves this and can't die soon enough.

Rule #2: Accept your sainthood! Learn use your new-found powers:

• Speak clearly and directly. Your words carry a lot of weight with us, but you have to sometimes speak forcefully to overcome the narrative running in our heads of whatever we expect an angelic person would say.

• Kindly but firmly demand control of your care. This is your disease, your pain, your death! Don't let your doctors and nurses take over just because they adore you.

• Defend your fellow patients. Just like you aren't the angel we think you are, the asshole patients aren't half as bad as we think they are. "Difficult patients" are the victims of the same splitting defense mechanism that created "nice patients" like you. Don't try to convince your MD or RN your fellow patient isn't that bad—it won't work. Just remind us to show more kindness to the assholes. We'll do it if an angelic patient like you asks us.

• Ask for lots of extra ice cream. We'll keep bringing it till you get a stomach ache!

Dr. D loves to read your thoughts in the comments.

A lot of you who read this blog have some really scary diseases:
-Have you ever been on the receiving end of Nice Patient Syndrome?
-How did you handle it?

Healthcare Peeps:
-What is your experience with Nice Patient Syndrome?
-Do you agree with Dr. D's theory of the condition?

A Doctor's Life

You're probably wondering where the long, brilliant, and eye-opening post for this week is?

Well, this week Dr. D worked 72 hours in the ER. I realize for some docs this is a light week, but as someone who doesn't actually like medicine this kind of week kicks my ass. I only saw my son awake once this whole week.

Ah, the glamorous life of an MD!

But enough bitching by Dr. D... I have a great post I'm preparing for you. I want to take the time to write something brilliant rather than giving you a crappy rough draft.

Stay tuned!

Doctor D Crossed The Line!

Doctor D has been blogging about the Doctor-Patient relationship for a while now. It’s sort of the thing I’m known for. I’ve usually been on the doctor side of this equation. Most of my blogging, however, is to help patients figure out the weird world of medicine.

Well, guess what? Doctor D recently found himself on the patient side of a nasty injury!

Even as Doctor D looked down and realized his leg wasn’t supposed to be that shape he said to himself, “Self, take mental notes! The readers of Doctor D’s Clinic of Doctor-Patient Relational Awesomeness will want to know about this."

Here is what Doctor D discovered when he became Patient D:

1) Doctor D Is Mostly Right

Any reader of this knows that Dr. D’s insight is typically brilliant and totally useful. I found myself actually looking up posts I had written for the solid and useful advice.

But even D has a lot to learn, so from here on I shall delve into the dark secrets I could only discover when crossing the line to the patient side!

2) Being The Patient Is The Hardest Job In Medicine

We doctors think we have difficult work. We have to slave our asses off for years in school. We are expected to be perfect and heroic while working with huge uncertainty. We try to protect your health, comfort, and life, while you patients just lay back and get taken care of!

Lying here isn't as relaxing as overworked docs think it is.

Just a few days as a hospital patient cleared my mind of any misconceptions. Abject helplessness combined with severe pain trumps everything. And helplessness is far worse than pain. Dr. D had never done anything as a doctor that caused more stress than allowing myself to be put to sleep for a major operation with a surgeon I had only spoken to for 30 seconds.

3) There Is Much More To Pain Than A Number

Doctor D has written a lot on pain scoring, so I attempted to rate my own pain as a matter of curiosity. I have a good imagination for what 10 out of 10 pain would feel like, so I gave the feeling of multiple shattered bones crunching whenever my leg moved a 7, which made it the most intense pain I’ve ever felt, but I could totally handle the excruciating acute pain.

The real surprise was realizing that duration of pain was far worse than intensity. I had a throbbing pain during my recovery that I could rate as a 4 if I’m generous, but it lasted for weeks and nearly drove me insane. Low-intensity pain that won't leave can make a person much more miserable than 10 out of 10.

4) Narcotics suck

I’ve seen a lot of nice people get addicted to opiate pain medicines. So Doctor D was the dude in the ER with a bone sticking out of his leg begging not to be given morphine. When they finally convinced me to take the narcotics I was please to discover I didn’t get any high. But what I did discover is that they made me miserable in other ways. I was groggy, nauseated, itchy, constipated, and mushy-brained whenever I had to use them.

Their efficacy varies drastically from person to person. I can say with certainty that a 400 mg Ibuprofen was significantly better for pain for me than a 10 mg Percocet, but since my Ortho wouldn’t let me use ibuprofen I was stuck with narcotics. So I then had to deal with the suspicious look when I told the doc I needed more because I had run out.

I am so happy to be off those things! As a physician, it was a bit eye opening to experience how inconsistent and imperfect our best pain medicines are. Managing the pain of a fellow human being is about as frustrating a situation as an MD can experience. I doubt my prescribing patterns will change much, but I do have a deeper appreciation for how hard it is to correctly wield the double-edged sword of pain medicines.

5) Being Disabled Can Really Crush An Ego

Regular visitors to The Clinic of Doctor-Patient Relational Awesomeness are likely aware that Doctor D has a very healthy self-esteem. 3 weeks of lying on my back absolutely helpless and unable to do anything had me at the lowest place I’ve every been. One night I—a generally tough dude—cried myself to sleep. I’m up and moving better now, but I will likely have a limp the rest of my life. My whole life I’ve been able to do everything physical I wanted to do. Now I’m one of the broken people. It’s going to take some getting used to.

I know as physician I often see people with broken and damaged bodies. It kind of annoyed me when people whined about it. “Look, we can’t fix everything, so be a grown up, get over yourself, and quit complaining!” It’s easy to feel this way when you aren’t the one with the disability. I’ve given myself that same pep talk a lot in the last two months—It doesn't work as well when I’m the one with the gimp leg. A lot of my patients have far worse problems than my leg ever was. I’m manning up to fact that my leg’s gonna hurt for decades, but I think I’ll be much more patient towards patients with severe disabilities in the future.

You can't say you wouldn't complain about it if you've never been there—it's a good thing for docs to keep in mind.

6) There Isn’t A "Sort Of Person" These Things Happen To.

Okay, I have to admit something a bit embarrassing here: We doctors sometimes think of our patients as a completely alien form of human life. It isn’t intentional. We wouldn’t even admit it out loud. It’s a weird psychological quirk that happens like a reflex.

Doctor’s see so much suffering and misery on a daily basis, and we just can’t spend all our time worrying if it will happen to us too. So we develop this mental trick: "These things won’t happen to me, because I’m not that sort of person." What sort of person? Well, the sort of person who ends up the patient with a painful or horrible condition, of course!

Unfortunately, psychological defense mechanisms are useless when the cold, harsh laws of physics apply pressure to human bones. This shit happens to everybody—even doctors. No one is the sort of person that has a debilitating injury, until it happens.

7) Some Doctors Just Can’t Be Helped

Doctor D has spent a lot of time educating you on how to deal with difficult doctors. One of the worse maladies plaguing the medical field is piss-poor communication, and Dr. D’s orthopedist has about the communication skills of a mentally-retarded clam.

There's a lot that patients can do to improve their communication with difficult doctors. I had a lot of questions, and I found myself going and reading my own posts for advice on how to get answers out of a doc with weak bedside manner.

In the end I just gave up. This dude just couldn’t communicate like a normal human being with a patient (even a patient who had an MD). I hear he’s an excellent surgeon and the fact that my leg got put back together is proof of this, but his ability to converse was just dismal.

"I'm sorry, but I don't consider speaking with you to be part of my job description."

When faced with a doctor who simply will not or cannot communicate a patient has two options: Leave or trust blindly.

Dr. D had a FUBAR leg, there was only one Orthopedist available at 1:00 am, and the ER doc said this dude was a good surgeon. So I trusted him even though he seemed mentally incapable of explaining the operation he was going to do. The gamble paid off and the leg is improving, but generally I would have to advise that you hit the road when paired with doctors incapable of communicating—especially if your doctor will need to manage your problem longer than a 2 hour surgery.

Okay, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Doctor D is back to limping around the exam room with patients, and so Doctor D’s Internet Clinic of Doctor-Patient Relational Awesomeness is back too. Send in those questions and I shall keep dropping knowledge on you!

What do you think?

Any of you medical folks have similar experiences and want to add some points?

Any of you with more experience as patients wish Dr. D had picked up more from his time on your side? If so, what did I miss?

Doctor D always loves to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Is It March Already?

How did it get to be March so quickly? Apparently, in his hiatus post Dr. D said he'd be back before the end of February. Oops!

But wait! I have an excuse:

During his hiatus Doctor D found himself on the other side of the exam room. Yes, D managed to destroy most of the bones in his leg and became an orthopedic patient!

I'll have a full report for you soon, but for now I can tell you that Dr. D's skeleton has been reinforced with Titanium and he is considering changing careers to become a bionic superhero.

Never fear, readers! Doctor D didn't forget his Clinic of Doctor-Patient Relational Awesomeness! So be mellow and keep the questions coming!

I'll have an awesome post for you to read by this time next week, and Tracy will make sure I keep my word!

Time Out

Last year Dr. D took the season of Lent to unplug from the internet for a while and contemplate the deeper meaning of life. It was an invigorating time of growth and reflection...

Yeah, you guessed it, Dr. D is putting his blog on "timeout" again.

We're going to pause AskAnMD for 2 months. Dr. D still has a lot of great stuff to blog about, but for now he just doesn't have the time. We'll be back sometime in February.

Why?

My grandmother as well as my favorite former patient died in November. This got me thinking... Dr. D keeps a list of things to do. That list included: "Call the Dude" and "Visit Grandma D" for many months. I procrastinated even when I knew the end was near for both of them. I could have reached out to either of them while they were still alive, but I was too busy.

Grandma D:
1918-2010

I love this blog, but it takes a lot of my time. I spend a lot of time thinking on the questions you write me, and writing, re-writing, checking, and formatting a post takes about 6 hours for me. Yeah, I'm that slow!

Going faster would make me put out rambling, useless junk, and I wouldn't do that to my readers.

So posting every week takes a significant chunk of my free time. So for the next few months I've decided to allot more time to my friends and family who are still breathing.

I Shall Return!

Doctor D will be back in his online clinic of doctorly wisdom and sarcasm soon, but for now you'll have to survive the long nights of Winter without him.

But be of good cheer! There are lots of great medblogs out there to keep you entertained and informed. The ones listed on the blog roll to your right are an excellent place to start.

You can also catch up on some of the really awesome stuff in the AskAnMD archives, and if you get board and desperate for a fix of Doctor D's inane observations you can follow him on Twitter.

You can also still email Dr. D your questions—just don't expect any immediate answers.

Then sometime in mid-February just when you had almost forgetten about Doctor D your feed for AskAnMD will roar to life and bring you awesome insights on that will totally blow your mind!

Until then:

I love you guys!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that other cheerful holiday whatnot!

The Doctor Will Grope You Now

Doctor D, what are your thoughts on the TSA?

Okay, so no one actually emailed me this, but it’s high time Doctor D set things straight!

Dr. D’s prescription for America:

Stop being such snively, self-important, brats!

So what gives a medical doctor any right to speak on transportation and counter-terrorism?

Doctors also do full body searches. We call them physical exams.

During these exams we touch and look at every part of the body. I stick my fingers in vaginas, rectums, and mouths. I even sometimes do these exams on children—Oh, the horror! Lock up that sick man!!!!

How do doctors get away with this disgusting violations of your rights? We feel you up under the guise of keeping you safe. The TSA learned their trick from doctors!

These exams are theoretically voluntary, but most doctors will decline to take care of you unless you submit to some sort of medical pat-down. What an outrage!

Is All Touching Dirty?

Look, we all recognize that this is a weird situation. Touching a stranger’s body is awkward for both the toucher and the touchee. It is human nature to reserve close physical contact for family, intimate friends, and lovers. But sometimes we must do things that feel unnatural.

It is my job to touch every person who seeks my help.

Sorry, but when we spend all day touching bodies we kind of get used to it. You may see your body as a unique and private expression of yourself, but we see it simply as a dull object that must be checked for signs of danger.

You may feel violated because I had to check your prostate, but it didn’t bother me one bit. Checking your rectum is no more disturbing to me than checking your ear.

Of course, we try to be sensitive. Doctor D has had to do some invasive exams on little kids and sexual assault victims. We should take our patients’ feelings into account, but not not doing our job at all isn’t sensitivity—it’s incompetence.

Here's The Naughty Part (Stop here if skimming!)

What everybody's getting really worked up about is genitals! You only let people touch those in the most intimate of moments, except of course at the doctor’s office or the airport. Then you get a stranger poking around some sensitive spots.Doctor D will go ahead and answer your question now:

No. We are not thinking about sex, and if you are that’s your problem—not ours.

We aren’t eunuchs or anything like that—we are just focused on the job. Doctor D is a red-blooded heterosexual man who loves women as much as the next guy, but D can honestly say he has never once felt anything amorous about a patient during an exam. You could be a supermodel or an 80 year old grandmother and Doctor D feels exactly the same about touching you during an exam. Doctors learn quickly to see the bodies we work on as tasks to be completed rather conduits of passion.

Sure there is the occasional true sicko, but these people so rare that you chances of having one of them examine you is pretty minuscule. Doctor D has known quite a few doctors who were walking hormones and hit on everything of the opposite sex they ever met, and still these docs were nothing but professional and trustworthy when doing physical exams. A professional touching of the private parts is about as unromantic a situation as possible.

The attracting effect of the human body has no power over me when I wear the white coat! "Sorry, but I just don’t feel that way about you. It’s not you—it’s me"

Can We Handle This Like Grown-Ups?

I feel for the TSA agents. They are getting harassed for just doing their job. Physical exams suck. I’m sure pat-downs do too. But if they are necessary in order to ensure your safety and they are required to fly, then you should either grin and bare it or plan a long road trip.

This TSA fiasco irritates Doctor D to no end! It’s not that people dislike body searches. That is understandable. It’s the attitude of enraged entitlement that irks Doctor D. Everybody demands everything be done perfectly, safely, and cheaply and with no inconvenience to them whatsoever:

“I feel bad! I demand your full attention. Don’t make me wait; don’t poke at me; and don’t you dare tell me the treatment has risks or side effects! I have a constitutional right to everything I want right now and without any bother!”

And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we are spoiled assholes?

Doctor D will be flying over the Christmas holidays, and when it’s time for his pat-down he will thank the beleaguered TSA agents for keeping us safe.

Your thoughts?

Any of you out there who's had a TSA pat-down that thinks it is worse than a pelvic exam?

Do you think patients should get treatments they want while “opting out” of the physical exam?

While Doctor D always loves to hear your thoughts, if your comments are too whiny or bratty Dr. D will hunt you down and administer a punitive rectal exam!