The Atlantic recently published an essay by a patient (also the daughter of a patient) whose experiences in today's health care system are as corrosive as those I've been pondering in The Mary Dell Show since Day One.
In fact, the author, Meghan O'Rourke, uses the same metaphor that I have for years for that health care system: "In the hospital, I always felt like Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party: I had woken up in a world that seemed utterly logical to its inhabitants, but quite mad to me." Those words are nearly verbatim from one of my Down the Rabbit Hole episodes published long ago.
O'Rourke also compares the amount of blood she gives to the stores of a vampire, as I did after having phlebotomies (blood letting) as treatment for my polycythemia. And how many times have I compared "essential or idiopathic this or that" to doctor-speak for physicians' not knowing what the hell is going on? As, in fact, she does as well.
O'Rourke invokes the same phrase I often complain about when describing life Down the Rabbit Hole of today's medical system, one dispensed by that System like sugar pills: "patient-centered care." That, I'm afraid, is a stark euphemism for "the patient comes last."
And O'Rourke agrees: "For a system that invokes 'patient-centered care' as a mantra, modern medicine is startingly inattentive--at times actively indifferent--to patients' needs."
Well, isn't that exactly what I've been saying all along here? In fact, the article started to get to me--it was as if O'Rourke had pulled phrases right out of my own record, though I'm not accusing her of doing that. It's simply, I suppose, that another literate patient has been given the run-around I have, and the same allusions and phrases occurred to her.
Big surprise. All patients are being given that run-around. Nearly every patient in today's health care system will fall down that Rabbit Hole.
In fact, the author, Meghan O'Rourke, uses the same metaphor that I have for years for that health care system: "In the hospital, I always felt like Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party: I had woken up in a world that seemed utterly logical to its inhabitants, but quite mad to me." Those words are nearly verbatim from one of my Down the Rabbit Hole episodes published long ago.
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| Original illustration of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland |
O'Rourke invokes the same phrase I often complain about when describing life Down the Rabbit Hole of today's medical system, one dispensed by that System like sugar pills: "patient-centered care." That, I'm afraid, is a stark euphemism for "the patient comes last."
And O'Rourke agrees: "For a system that invokes 'patient-centered care' as a mantra, modern medicine is startingly inattentive--at times actively indifferent--to patients' needs."
Well, isn't that exactly what I've been saying all along here? In fact, the article started to get to me--it was as if O'Rourke had pulled phrases right out of my own record, though I'm not accusing her of doing that. It's simply, I suppose, that another literate patient has been given the run-around I have, and the same allusions and phrases occurred to her.
Big surprise. All patients are being given that run-around. Nearly every patient in today's health care system will fall down that Rabbit Hole.
