"Broke" -- but not broken

The writer has been a living, working part of the healing profession from the use of penicillin and sulfonamides to the clinical use of stem cells. A practicing physician for more than fifty years, I have experienced both the joys of saving and healing lives, but also the sorrows when the patients did not respond, or got worse and died. One looked at the practice of his chosen profession as an art based on the scientific demands for evidence. One lived by the maxim "first, do no harm!" and one remembered each day the elements of ethos and the oath of Hippocrates, and one tried to be kind and reasonable, despite the stresses and the weariness of too little rest. We learned to laugh at ourselves and tried never to take ourselves too seriously. As to fees for his/her labors, one is reminded of an old story about the old doctor and his older Model T.

The kids were teasing and taunting the old "Doc" as he puttered by in his ancient vehicle. He gave the little hoodlums a cheerful smile, pointing to them one by one and shouting: "Go ahead, boys. But this old tin Lizzie is paid for -- and you ain't and you ain't and you ain't!" One wonders what the going rate for OBGYN that year -- a mess of crappie or a haunch of venison

There has been a problem in financing health care since the time of the old Ford. Fee-for-service is the backbone of the practice of medicine -- not that we worship money, but because the honest workman is worthy of his hire. Then folks started buying "health-care insurance which sufficed for a time, until the premiums rose by several hundred percent to the point that one-sixth of us are uninsured privately. The poverty-stricken and the elderly are provided for by the government agencies who also set the fees and advise when one is not "covered." This is going broke and needs fixing.

Nurses, technicians, paramedics, therapists, insurance clerks and comptroller throughout the land support the outstanding work of physicians not only in the vast renowned medical centers but also in rural America and small towns like the old doc with the flivver. We shall carry on with our duties with pride on knowing we are the best in the world.