5. Privilege = Responsibility ꟷ Sounding Our National Health Care Alarm
- T Michael White MD FACP
- Oct 17
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 21
ABC-STEEEP
Affordable Basic Compassionate
Safe Timely Efficient Effective Equitable
Patient-Centered Care
Letters to the File
T Michael White MD FACP
******
5. Privilege = Responsibility ꟷ Sounding Our National Health Care Alarm
"Privilege is here, and with privilege goes responsibility."
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Abraham Lincoln
The WhiteHouse on the Belleair Bluff
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Dr. Mike,
A letter to the file…
For a lifetime, you have had the privilege to participate in your beloved, sacred medical profession. For seven decades, Medicine (the dreaming, the becoming, the practicing, the experiencing, the analyzing) has consumed you. At times, your journey has been arduous; however, it has always been unfailingly fulfilling. Any sacrifice on your part, has been repaid a thousand-fold. Privileged to have been (and remain) a physician, you have been truly blessed. It is a career inseparable from a life you would wish for all.
As you wind down and look back, you recognize your profession has only been lent to you for a brief time. At some conscious/unconscious level, you have always understood that this privilege has never been yours for the keeping. It has only been entrusted to you to, to the best of your ability, implement, prudently steward, burnish and ultimately pass on.
From the beginning, you have known that this gift ꟷ this privilege ꟷ has been accompanied by responsibility ꟷ responsibility to leave your profession better than when it was first entrusted to you. Now, nearing your end, you take this responsibility seriously. In that regard, seeing something, you have the responsibility to say something:
The seeing: health care in our fine United States has become an alarming paradox. On one hand, for those in the right place at the right time, care is beyond splendid. For others, it is, at best, an inaccessible, unaffordable wish ꟷ and those counted among these less fortunate are increasing.
The saying: you must sound the alarm ꟷ our national health care non-system is in disarray. While recognizing and praising much good, we must, together, design and advance the solution ꟷ an organized United States Health Care System ꟷ that immediately provides universal access to affordable, basic, compassionate, safe, timely, efficient, effective, equitable (just), patient-centered care (ABC-STEEEP).
As you step forward, please recognize that you are not alone in this. Like you, others (administrators, citizens, clinicians, matriarchs/patriarchs, patients, politicians, significant others), too have responsibility to our trailing generations ꟷ to your and their progeny ꟷ to provide them universal access to affordable, basic, compassionate, safe, timely, efficient, effective, equitable (just), patient-centered care (ABC-STEEEP). (360 words)
Respectfully submitted with fondest personal regards,
Dr. Mike
You may leave an anonymous comment without username and email ꟷ please do. Please share your wisdom, insights and perceptions (your reality) about what I have right, wrong and/or omitted. I will be delighted to hear from you as this draft and subsequent chapters will be significantly enhanced.
Dr. Mike
Letters to the File
Introduction to ABC-STEEEP ꟷ Letters to the File
About Dr. Mike
My Perfect Health Care ꟷ An Uncomfortable Paradox
From the Watershed into Universal Access to ABC-STEEEP
Privilege = Responsibility ꟷ Sounding Our National Health Care Alarm
(more to follow)
You define so well the paradox of our health care system. Your image of what should be is compelling. But...how do we get there any time soon?...the current tides are clearly moving against us.
Looking great Dr. Mike! Keep up the good work.