The Cistern

Going to the Doctor

I believe that it is possible that the best job you can ever have is being a doctor. People always go to you, and if you get well, the doctor did it, and if you die, well, they did the best they could.

Yeah, I know about malpractice and all that other stuff, but the doctor guild has the perk of hiring quite expensive attorneys. This is a bit like a moat with alligators in it should you wish to litigate. If you are dead, you find it harder to litigate. If you are alive, first make it through the moat.

Yes, I'm sure that there are doctors out there who are not first and foremost a business, but I suspect that a person might find that if they wanted to go to a doctor and couldn't afford it, in most cases the doctor simply won't see them. Indeed, I know this is clearly a Western view, but then if you have 'socialized doctors' then you can go to see the doctor in question but not only do they have lawyer protection but they also have governmental protection!

This is why issues like COVID happen as they happen. A doctor, like anyone else, makes a paycheck and they are not too eager to have it removed. If you start to lean on the profession and say "Hey, you better not say shit against this thing here," then there are many doctors who will simply remember what it was like going to prolonged academic doctor school and will not raise much of a ruckus.

Personally, I have more fondness for the Eastern traditions of doctoring. Native Americans lived a long time in the US without doctors as well, and they seemed to have a pretty good quality of life until diseased Europeans came over with a whole lot of vices. Those Europeans, of course, had 'doctors'.