This report from Haiti is a reminder that doctors are not always the answer to a healthcare need. We might be well-served by a national discussion of what are the properties of healthcare practitioners that we believe we are seeking to maximize and whether these are well matched to our needs as a society and as patients. It is a discussion which will also inform budgets.
1 comment:
Absolutely. One of the great promises of technology in medicine is that it enables useful care (whether health management and wellness or response to acute illness or injury) to be delivered by a much wider range of personnel. Physicians are wonderful machines and can diagnose all manner of rare and strange disease. But when faced with a broken leg or a persistent cough, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they will treat that the same as a physician assistant, nurse practitioner or EMT. This isn't typing symptoms into Google and seeing what treatment comes out - it's looking for the XX% of medicine (which is easily > 50) that is truly rules based and easily excluded from areas where complex diagnostics are required.
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