30 October 2011
Hospitals Protect Themselves
My recent experience in two hospitals compels me to note that medical institutions and their staffs have become hostage to the threat of lawsuits accusing them of endangering the welfare of their patients. It’s a no-win position that they have been put in, of course. However, the treatment of sick persons admitted for medical care must answer to at least four authorities: the professional hospital staff, the patient himself, regulators and, after the fact, legal claimants.
This potential conflict of concerns often results in the patient’s wishes being given the lowest priority, although he Is naturally the foremost authority on treatment of prior or ancillary conditions which may not have anything to do with the reason for his admission into the hospital. On the other hand, the patient may be mistaken with regard to some of the therapies he used before coming to the hospital. In my case, both situations were true. Whereas it took long arguments and demands that a physician allow an exception to the staff pharmacist’s rote prescription in order to be allowed to continue taking an anticonvulsive medicine at the dosage I had learned works for me, it was only after several weeks in the hospital and consultation with the in-house doctor that we concluded that the originally prescribed dosage of another medicine may likely have led to the fall that resulted in the injury that put me in the hospital at all.
Of course, lying in a hospital bed all day leads one to exaggerate issues like these. Nevertheless, it doesn’t pay to accept the role of the meek patient. I understand the hospital nurses who defended the institution’s rules on adhering to standard dosages when I objected to their original administration of the anticonvulsive drug and admire their assiduity in finding the physicians with whom to consult when I repeatedly insisted on making an exception to those rules.
My recent experience in two hospitals compels me to note that medical institutions and their staffs have become hostage to the threat of lawsuits accusing them of endangering the welfare of their patients. It’s a no-win position that they have been put in, of course. However, the treatment of sick persons admitted for medical care must answer to at least four authorities: the professional hospital staff, the patient himself, regulators and, after the fact, legal claimants.
This potential conflict of concerns often results in the patient’s wishes being given the lowest priority, although he Is naturally the foremost authority on treatment of prior or ancillary conditions which may not have anything to do with the reason for his admission into the hospital. On the other hand, the patient may be mistaken with regard to some of the therapies he used before coming to the hospital. In my case, both situations were true. Whereas it took long arguments and demands that a physician allow an exception to the staff pharmacist’s rote prescription in order to be allowed to continue taking an anticonvulsive medicine at the dosage I had learned works for me, it was only after several weeks in the hospital and consultation with the in-house doctor that we concluded that the originally prescribed dosage of another medicine may likely have led to the fall that resulted in the injury that put me in the hospital at all.
Of course, lying in a hospital bed all day leads one to exaggerate issues like these. Nevertheless, it doesn’t pay to accept the role of the meek patient. I understand the hospital nurses who defended the institution’s rules on adhering to standard dosages when I objected to their original administration of the anticonvulsive drug and admire their assiduity in finding the physicians with whom to consult when I repeatedly insisted on making an exception to those rules.
Do Too Many People Go to College?
I watched an interesting debate on PBS yesterday in which two teams argued whether it was beneficial for over 90% of Americans to carry their education through four years of college in order to obtain a bachelor’s degree. By comparison, many innovative societies in the world make do with a much lower percentage of college graduates, even only ten percent of the population. The winning side in the debate convinced a bare plurality of the audience that it is not worth the cost or enrichment of lifestyles for American individuals to divert four years or more of their lives from earning a living or attaining certification in a specific profession to experience the mind-broadening, socialization, and analytical skills that a liberal arts education is said to offer.
My greatest disappointment in the debate and ensuing discussion came from the absence of consideration for the epidemiological effect of so common an experience as a four-year college education has become in American society. Just as the near universality of polio and smallpox inoculations makes those diseases near extinct, the broad exposure of Americans to a level of discourse and analysis that characterizes even the least elite of four-year colleges must raise the amount of critical thinking that goes into every decision made by the society’s members to pursue or support changes in living, the arts, and production. That is the reason that so many educated members of other countries find it most fulfilling to pull up their stakes and come to an American society where their skills and ambitions can thrive in a fertile intellectual environment.
The external economy of college’s wide commonality places a costly burden on Americans buying their membership in that intellectually rich community. Perhaps the judgment can be made that the public benefit of a high general level of critical thinking merits devotion of a greater portion of tax revenues to the subsidization of college tuition and other expenses. To be fair, therefore, it may become necessary to charge immigrants for the cost of having created such an inviting field for them to pursue their dreams.
I watched an interesting debate on PBS yesterday in which two teams argued whether it was beneficial for over 90% of Americans to carry their education through four years of college in order to obtain a bachelor’s degree. By comparison, many innovative societies in the world make do with a much lower percentage of college graduates, even only ten percent of the population. The winning side in the debate convinced a bare plurality of the audience that it is not worth the cost or enrichment of lifestyles for American individuals to divert four years or more of their lives from earning a living or attaining certification in a specific profession to experience the mind-broadening, socialization, and analytical skills that a liberal arts education is said to offer.
My greatest disappointment in the debate and ensuing discussion came from the absence of consideration for the epidemiological effect of so common an experience as a four-year college education has become in American society. Just as the near universality of polio and smallpox inoculations makes those diseases near extinct, the broad exposure of Americans to a level of discourse and analysis that characterizes even the least elite of four-year colleges must raise the amount of critical thinking that goes into every decision made by the society’s members to pursue or support changes in living, the arts, and production. That is the reason that so many educated members of other countries find it most fulfilling to pull up their stakes and come to an American society where their skills and ambitions can thrive in a fertile intellectual environment.
The external economy of college’s wide commonality places a costly burden on Americans buying their membership in that intellectually rich community. Perhaps the judgment can be made that the public benefit of a high general level of critical thinking merits devotion of a greater portion of tax revenues to the subsidization of college tuition and other expenses. To be fair, therefore, it may become necessary to charge immigrants for the cost of having created such an inviting field for them to pursue their dreams.
