Doctors - Triumphs, Trials and Tragedies
Dr. John Wright (Author)
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Review & Description
Distinguished, retired Australian surgeon, Dr John Wright, has written this fascinating account of some of the most publicized and notorious cases of medical malpractice reported in Australia and elsewhere. The revealed diversity of medical misconduct is staggering. Cases such as Dr. William McBride, Jayant Patel (Dr. Death), Winifred Childs and Clarence Gluskie, both senior psychiatrists. Well known entrepreneur and socialite, Geoffrey Edelsten, cases in America and Britain such as Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the world famous advocate of euthanasia.
THIS BOOK ALSO COVERS:
*The damaging influence of pharmaceutical companies on doctors
* The debate between abortion and the right to life
* Cloning and medical experiments, including those conducted
under the Nazi regime
* Dr. Christian Barnard and heart transplant donors
* Legal lawsuits
* The violation of medical ethics in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
The great majority of doctors are honourable, generous, reliable and effective. Many of them work in sheltered environments such as laboratories where they are never likely to encounter temptations to misbehave professionally and scarcely understand how others might feel and act differently. All of them have been high achievers, prepared to wait 10 or 20 years after secondary schooling before being able to command a reasonable income. Regardless of that, there is a perception that many of them are wealthy, off-hand, politically powerful and snobbish. In fact, regardless of the media's and lawyers' preoccupation with doctors' negligence and other sins, they are still trusted and respected much more widely than any other professional group.
Doctors are unique in what they know and can do and people admire and envy them for it but that is no different from how they admire airline pilots or nurses or dental surgeons or nuclear physicists or many other human pursuits. One large difference is that doctors are highly privileged - they are almost intuitively believed to be trustworthy, honest, reliable healers of the sick and, above all, concerned. But there is another unique difference. If necessary and done appropriately, they are required and allowed to "touch" patients intimately, both physically and psychologically. In fact, the skill of physically touching a frightened, sick person for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment divides doctors generally in a fundamental fashion. Some of them are never comfortable or comforting in that respect. Hence there is a natural and chosen primary separation into groups and specialties according to that capability.
Why do some doctors put at risk the whole of their medical life and prospects of doing good when they have strived for years to achieve those goals? Almost all of them began their medical studies with an ambition and expectation to make the world somehow a better place. Are the risk-takers any different from those in other jobs who cross a boundary into the dangerous territory of being investigated, penalised and, perhaps, sent into professional oblivion? Of course, their possible foibles are not generically different from any other human's weaknesses. Greed, dishonesty, lust and lack of scruple in doctors are no different from others but their flaws are probably more at odds with their original incentives, aspirations and belief systems.
No doubt their privileges offer different and more accessible opportunities to stray from safe paths than others might - more tempting because liberties may be more personal and trust is assumed to be part of what they represent and who they are. Unlike many other employments, the practice of medicine generally has an earlier end-point than, say, law but similar to that of an airline pilot. Something worthwhile and rewarding is hoped for before the shelf-life of serviceability is near or reached...
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #577396 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-03-02
- Released on: 2012-03-02
- Format: Kindle eBook
- Number of items: 1
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