The Attorney General's office, on the other hand, has obtained a deposition from Dr. Steere. The situation today may be blamed partly on the anonymity and specialization of our medical care system. Many physicians no longer live in the communities where their patients reside, instead, they treat from urban specialty clinics. Correct diagnosis is more important than ongoing care. Patients who are unsuccessfully treated at such centers are unlikely to return.
Country doctors have a different experience.
Ed Masters, MD, of Missouri, can't escape from his patients, who are also his friends and neighbors. If he stops treatment before they are well, they return to his office and insist he treat them again. In this way Dr. Masters learned that two weeks of antibiotics often did not cure Lyme disease. If the patients don't stop this, they are going to find they will have no doctors willing to treat them. He reminds us that another spirochetal disease, syphilis, is not considered curable in its later stages, but patients receive antibiotic treatment nonetheless.