Betsy McCaughey cheerfully embarrasses herself on Jon Stewart, and takes a seriously out of touch physician down with her.
Oh dear, Oh dear.
Near the end, Ms. M. pulls out an op-ed by a physician decrying HR 3200 as the end of medicine. I know those people are out there, but they are in a shrinking minority.
My problem, as a physician who has practiced medicine for decades, is that I just can't predict with certainty what is end-of-life care, nor can I determine for another individual the meaning of "quality of life."
Well that's the whole point, isn't it? It's not the physician's choice it is the patient's choice, the patient's wishes that count. It is entirely the point of advance care planning and advance directives that it is up to the patient to decide what he or she wants. Our responsibility as physicians is to give them the best information that we can, imperfect as it is, and help them come to decisions that best reflect their wishes and goals.
And kudos to for Jon for making the point that an advance directive can indicate one wants everything done, in my phrasing, until they are nailing your coffin shut if that is your wish.
And, no, we cannot predict with certainty when a person is exactly at the end of life - and I suspect that this author and Ms. M. would only acceptt a definition of end of life as minutes away - but I do have a wealth of experience to go on, and I think it is unprofessional to allow families to cling to miracle scenarios for survival.
And here's another gem:
I would be loath to talk a person on dialysis or in a wheelchair from a stroke into forgoing antibiotics for a pneumonia that may itself be treatable.
Well, so would I, because that is not the role of a physician, is it? Jeebus. Jude the Obtuse.
Ms. M. read this part on the air:
"These and other provisions of the health choices act frankly scare me. As a physician, I took an oath long ago to put my patient's interests above all else, but provisions in the bill have a quality of coerciveness that make me wonder if I can fulfill my oath."
You have a higher duty to be honest with your patients and not blow smoke up their rears, telling them that this next chemo, this next procedure, this next indignity, is always worth it.
As I'm putting together this post, it infuriates me to consider countering this stupid, stupid, stupid, uninformed, heartless, obtuse rhetoric yet again.
Jon could have had his Marshal McLuhan moment times thousands. He could have pulled from behind the curtain the presidents of virtually every physicians organization in the country, every professor of medicine and surgery at every medical school and every medical chief of staff and chief of service just in New York City and produced hundreds of physicians to refute the bilious lies of the divine Ms. M.
OK, maybe she's not lying and she's just deliberately obtuse.