Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Doctors are glorified mechanics who work retail, and they're definitely not patient centric; it's all about what's convenient for the hospital staff, specifically doctors and to a lesser extent, nurses. Egregious examples of this lack of patient consideration include: group rooms so that no one sleeps, blood draws and IVs at all hours, inefficient discharges, repeated questioning, and no notification of costs nor permission to incur those costs. The reality is, how could it be any different? Healthcare operates under best practices, which means doing the accepted procedures for everyone, regardless; very similar to the concept of equality under the law. In fact, medicine is a one-size-fits-all profession because who wants to be treated worse than everyone else, but given the chance, everyone would want to be treated better.

This uniform process implementation conflicts with the mystical concept that healthcare centers around the patient. Hospital brochures and advertisements stress how they give the patient control over their treatment, but without specifics about what that means, because there is nothing: patients are addressed the same, put in the same queues, and treated the same no matter who or where they are. A rotating hospital staff and basic human self-centeredness ensures it can be no other way: Mr. Smith is on the Stroke floor, that's all the staff needs to know. Considering the discomfort, anxiety, exhaustion and cognitive impairment of patients, plus distraught & unreasonable family members, the process has to be strictly assembly-line: next.