Malpractice attorneys will prosper. To survive financially, physicians are already selling their practices to large business interests and accepting guaranteed salaries. My once proud and respected profession is simply becoming another job. So, for those of us who wanted nothing more than to fulfill the noble ideals of Hippocrates, there is little left to do but mourn. I am tired of fighting this new health-care system and fear that I am giving up.
Doctors seem ill-equipped to fight society's economic demands.
We can only hope that our patients will ask enough questions to the formulators of these new policies so that we can all more realistically examine our health-care standards. One hopes that with such an examination, we will not allow medicine's high quality of care and individualism of character to die that slow, painful death of spirit that, in the end, well may kill us all. Dr. Goldman is a neurologist in private practice and a clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine. For a printed copy of this issue of Psychiatric Times , use the information at the top of this page. Permission to repost or reprint any material on this site must be obtained by contacting the Webmaster .