Chapter 4. Responsibility to Sound the National Health Care Alarm
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From... Fixing United States Health Care --- Citizen Letters
T Michael White MD
Chapter 4. Responsibility to Sound the 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
July 4 th
Fine Citizens hello.
For a lifetime, I (the ancient, wizened, academic, administrative and clinical physician) have had the privilege to participate in my beloved, sacred medical profession. For seven decades, Medicine (the dreaming, the becoming, the practicing, the experiencing, the sharing, the analyzing) has consumed me. At times, my journey has been arduous; however, it has always been unfailingly fulfilling. Any sacrifice on my part, has been repaid a thousand-fold. Privileged to have been (and remain) a physician, I have been truly blessed. It is a career, inseparable from a life, that I would wish for all.
As I wind down, looking back, I recognize my profession has only been lent to me for a brief time. At some conscious/unconscious level, I have always understood that this privilege has never been mine for the keeping. It has only been entrusted to me to, to the best of my ability, implement, prudently steward, burnish and ultimately pass on.
From the beginning, I have known that this gift --- this privilege to heal --- has been
accompanied by responsibility --- the responsibility to leave my profession better than when it was first entrusted to me. Now, entering my career and life final chapters, I must step up to my responsibility. Seeing something, I 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 --- and those counted among these less fortunate have become an ever-increasing majority.
The saying: I must sound the alarm --- our unplanned national health care non-system is in disarray. While recognizing and praising much good, I must decently, gently and kindly tell it plain --- our United States health care has evolved into a certifiable, cataclysmic, catastrophic, chaotic, unaffordable hot mess. Alarmed, together, we must design and advance the solution: a planned, tax-payer funded, single-payer, regional provider infrastructure --- The United States Health Care System (USHCS) --- that provides our citizens universal access to affordable, basic/necessary, compassionate --- safe, timely, efficient, effective, equitable/just, patient-centered care (ABC-STEEEP).
As I step forward, I recognize many share my responsibility. Like me, administrators,
care givers, citizens, friends, matriarchs/patriarchs, neighbors, nurses, patients, physicians and politicians are obligated to step up and provide our trailing generations (our progeny) [our near and dear] universal access to ABC-STEEEP.
Alarm sounded, alerted, please join me in the fray.
Respectfully submitted,
Dr. Mike
Please share your perceptions (your reality) about what I have right, wrong and/or omitted. I will be delighted to hear from you as your insights will significantly enhance my efforts. Importantly, if/when a message rings true, please forward it to those you deem may desire to know. TMWMD
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