I
visit The New York Times site often. Earlier in the day I posted a
comment for the first time – the question asked was should a Doctor
walk away from a patient – the article that it referred to was “Showing
the Patient the Door, Permanently.” This evening my comment, to my
surprise, had the most recommendations and was an Editor's Selection.
The list of comments by recommendations was here I
don't know if you have to log into the NYTimes site to read it and I
don't know if the page will look exactly as it looked when I last
looked at it. This is what I had to say there:
24.
All Editors' Selections » EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
June 10th, 2008 8:21 am
My father, Clarence M. Wigfall, Sr., MD and my grandfather, Jonathan N. Rucker, MD did not walk away from patients. In the deep South, they made house calls even when people called them Nigger as they walked into a patients home, even when there was no money to pay them, when it was late or far away in isolated rural areas. Black, white, rich or poor, rational or irrational, if you were sick or injured and they could get to you they went and cared. Some of my earliest memories are traveling with my father in his Packard during the early 1950's through the strange labyrinth of American Apartheid taking care of everyone who called or sent for help along with those who could show up at his office. I don't think it ever occurred to him to walk away from a patient. He was a Medical Doctor, people's lives, mental health and hopes often depended on him. That was his calling. Medical technology has certainly advanced, but today something often seems to be missing from the hearts of those who wield that technology.
— Clarence Wigfall, Los Angeles, CA
Recommend Recommended by 120 Readers
Showing the Patient the Door, Permanently is the article that got me going. He may have a point, but I grew up with a totally different medical mentality as shown by my father and grandfather and their peers.
The times, they are a'changin.
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