Hey, Garrison, I agree with you. Let the markets decide. Regulation didn’t seem to get us out of the Great Depression sooner, and laissez-faire wasn’t allowed an opportunity to fully implement. We’ve got plenty of regulation now and we’ve still fallen into a “pre”recession and may still drop fully. And no matter how much money and regulations the government has pumped into airline companies, some still fold. Free market. Survival of the fittest.

I’m not fond of the Bear Stearns deals and such. If you’re bad at your business, whether by practice or budget, you fall on your own. I don’t see less regulation. I see more regulation and more interference by the government. If hospitals want to keep our business, they’ll do their best not to tick off their customers, that is, us, the patient. And in that, they can regulate themselves without too much government interference. Yet the liberal model is more government regulation, if not outright control, specifically of the health care industry. If it’s so good, why are French and British citizens having so many complaints and problems with their government run health care systems?

It’s all about balance. Not too much of any one thing. Too much corporate or government control and yes, they can force us to accept and buy/ pay whatever kind of care they provide, whether that be good or bad for us. The majority of our healthcare system is already privately owned and operated. There is already plenty of regulation in place, and probably too much. Heck, the next place I’d love to see deregulated is education. The Federal government has its hands way too much in the educational system.

The issue at hand has nothing to do with government interference and everything to do with bedside manner, along with taking a breath, common sense and listening. Just as suzy commented with the comparision to the auto repair industry. I don’t think government regulation to an nth degree would improve those issues just because the government admistrates. Consider Glenn Beck’s recent ordeal (He’s just an example… there are plenty of other similar stories)… government regulation would not have made his situation any better. Who knows exactly why Glenn was treated with such malaise and error, who knows what was going thru the heads of some of the people who dealt with him, but having recently gone thru an emergency room issue with my family, the empathy level was somewhat similar, and they didn’t know us from Adam.

Too many health care professionals are forgetting or not learning empathy and an open mind… and no amount of socialistic regulation can affect that.

“If hospitals want to keep our business, they’ll do their best not to tick off their customers, that is, us, the patient.”

Huh… it’s not like we as patients prefer to be there in the first place.

But you’ve got a point. I had a doctor and an underling who were so snotty and condescending during a routine visit, I’ll never be back to that place.

Most places, however, the hospital staff does put forward a lot of empathy. And it goes both ways too; which is a helpful reminder when you’re the one getting stuck with needles.

I think you should ask about everything that you put in your body. I guess the real question is would your understand enough of what they said to make a decision. They think they are doing the correct thing or they wouldn’t be doing it. What if your understanding caused you to not allow something that turned out to be critical to you or your child. It’s a shame but sometimes decisions have to be made in a split second while in the hospital and a second opinion may take a while to get. Like it or not, we have to put our health and sometimes life in someone’s hands and hope for the best.

By the way. Walgreens could make a rubber ball ratttle. I have caught them in many mistakes.

It is tramatic enough for parents when our children are required to have surgery.. To place the responsibily of their care including med’s in our hands is allowing the hospitals and staff to get lazier and even more negiligent. Then they have the audacity to cry that they are short staffed and overworked and underpayed! Welcome to America.
I don’t go to the dentist and expect that he is going to hand me the drill to fill my own tooth. I shouldn’t have to be the one playing nurse or doctor either. That is their job and if they suck at it then they shouldn’t be there in the first place. I never would of considered that the medical professionals were not on their game when my kids had their procedures done.
Years later, now that they are adults, I cringe at how trusting I was. It is a sad fact that we now have to question every part of every procedure done to us and our children. Some might say that that is just good common sense to me it is a testament of what we have allowed our medical professionals to become.

Ryan, yeah, I get you on the both ways thing. I’ve not always been the easiest patient. But then, being cooped up in a hospital for two months kinda gets on your nerves. At 21 years old, I thought I knew a lot. With a collapsed lung eventually needing open chest surgery, I often tested the nurses, but on the whole I was a fairly compliant patient.

I’d take a shower with all sorts of stuff dangling from me and they’d bang on the bathroom door asking what I was doing! I’d get sarcastic to them yelling about me getting bandages wet, to which I’d reply they needed to be/ or would be replaced anyway. There were a number of pills I was given daily, many of which I’d spit out later. A couple of days after the big surgery all of my equipment was on one side of the bed. After being bedridden for three days, I was ready to get up. I probably wasn’t a door past my room when an RN’s hand was on my shoulder asking me what I was doing. I was walking slower than a near invalid at a nursing home. I had to have doctor’s orders to get up and walk around. I felt good getting up and about, and either later that day or the next I was allowed to walk. On the flip side I had a number of needles and such in both arms and eventually one arm swelled up because it’d been in too long. I called for a nurse who wouldn’t remove it until given the okay by a doctor!!! My friggen arm looked like I had elephantitis! This was the same place that gave me two catheters within a matter of hours because they were waiting for me to pee… who’d just had open chest surgery, an epidural and pretty much bed-ridden for a couple of weeks, certainly for 12 hours following the surgery. Needless to say I was not impressed with that hospital on the whole. I did notice however better treatment in the children’s ward where I was initially placed as compared to the regular ward after my final surgery.

I won’t regale any with my step-father’s experiences with the VA, a la government run healthcare.

And Gina, think of the potential if they’re completely administrated by the government! A government job is almost as solid as a union job. You get one, you’re good to go… like a bad teacher or professor with tenure!

But we need more government control, because that’ll fix everything! Yeah, right.

I dunno about kids and hospitals, but EVERYONE should be careful of taking muscle relaxers (which lurk about in your system) on a daily basis and drinking alcohol.

Garrison it’s not the Republicans or the president that’s to fault for all the world’s woes.It’s truly the democrats,can’t you see that?This article is about doctors.I sure hope you never need one because if you do their the only humans who can help you plain and simple!!

#15 Gina,
No one is arguing that you should be playing doctor or nurse. However, I would question why anyone would take a passive approach to their or their children’s healthcare. Especially in this age where the insurance companies are anxious to discharge patients, the more you know about the treatment the better you can take care of yourself or your children once out of the hospital.
The fact is people make mistakes on the job. Doctors and nurses are not an exception, it is just that there mistakes sometimes have larger consequences than the kid at McDonald’s who gives back the wrong change or puts pickles on your McChicken.