“Change” – Sometimes it is Good/ Sometimes Not
We are constantly evolving, as people, and it is no news to you that “change” always seems to be the most desirable next step. In some instances, change is for the better. However, change just for the sake of itself does not always reap expected benefits. To turn to politics, for an instant, Barack Obama has achieved his current pinnacle of success on the buzzword of “change.”
Right now, the results of change are troublesome. Schools are turning out students who are lackadaisical about disciplined learning. Graduates sometimes lack critical thinking skills altogether. It is rather frightening. I mean, would you really like to have a doctor operating on you who has barely eeked through medical school with poor grades? I’d rather have an A student taking out my appendix. By the way, what are the standards of medical schools in other countries? Foreign-trained doctors are being hired, left and right, in clinics across the country, and some of those doctors are quite inept.
While we are on the subject, what about the current state of kickbacks – oh, pardon me, “rebates,” to doctors, for prescribing medications? One doctor tried (unsuccessfully) to tell me that I have Restless Leg Syndrome and don’t sleep well. Really? I sleep just fine, and if I don’t, it is perhaps more often due to a certain person, snoring. Yes, sometimes it is me snoring, waking myself up! Ha! No, no twitchy legs here.
Maybe the problem between foreign doctors and patients is sometimes that of language. Some doctors just don’t know how to interact with, or speak with, patients.
I like to remember the time when doctors made house calls, when they knew every member of the family, or at least all of the siblings.
Dr. Joy and Dr. Jalbert, in my youth, were two of the finest physicians I have ever known. One of them visited our house one Sunday, late afternoon, after my brother had split his head open when ice skating with my other brother, and my parents were away at some church activity. Unless memory fails me, one of them came to see me when I had Scarlet Fever. When I think back, I see my childhood as a kind of Norman Rockwell vignette. Even though we lived in a city, everything seemed so home town, right down to the striped poles outside the barber shops.
We went to the bakery on Saturday afternoons. The smell of breads and pastries nearly filled the street. My mother would buy baked beans that surpassed even her own, and hers were delicious. Her favorite pastry was “Neopolitans.” My Dad favored “Apple Turnovers.” Of course, today, the business is no longer there.
As I approach my birthday, I can’t help but think of these kinds of changes – no more house calls by doctors, no more small town atmosphere in Manchester, no more bakery, or dedicated fish market in the “Irish” part of town. Things and places change and we change. It is all so subtle and slow moving, we barely notice from day to day. My hair is gray and changing to white. I weigh more than I did when I was in college. I reach for my glasses, if I don’t already have them on, whenever I want to read, and I’m noticing, more and more, all the little aches and pains associated with aging.
I find myself getting enraged at the mistakes of others who “should know better.” I find that I do not suffer fools gladly, or at all. I have become very outspoken because I have a command of more knowledge, than ever before, and I view it as an injustice and a personal affront when anyone passes along false information.
So, there are changes in the world that are unavoidable: natural disasters, the economy, and war. We have little or no control over the physical changes of aging, in ourselves. The things we can change, we should, for starters: Education with higher standards at every level; and testing for foreign doctors coming into mainstream medical practices in the U.S. In addition, it would be a good idea to outlaw those so-called “rebates” as they present a conflict of interest between patient interest, and padding the pockets of doctors.
Some change is good; but some is not. The next president will not have time to sort out all the problems because they have been developing for too long a time. We can start making the world a “kinder, gentler” place, in our own workplace. For example, a nice way to answer the phone at a clinic would be, “Hello. May I help you?” – not, “I’m with another patient. Can you hold? (click). The health care system does seem in need of a major overhaul. In life, you will find that it IS the little things that matter.
Patricia Cummings
