Part two of the interview with me at Inside Surgery appeared today.
There are questions on the writings of Atul Gawande, physicians who tell-all about their patients on their blogs, and how the practice of medical care has come to seem more like shift-work than the venerable profession it once was. Here’s an excerpt from that last topic.
In 20th century America, business and industry became bureaucratized and were subjected to outside control. The medical profession held out against this change for a very long time. It argued that the doctor/patient relationship was special and unique among professions and should be under the control of doctors and patients, not outside bureaucracies.
The medical profession may have also been concerned about loss of prestige and income, but the sanctity of the doctor/patient relationship was central to resisting external control. This more or less committed the practice of medicine to the model of the solo practitioner.
