In the April 2007 issue of that gray old lady of American journalism, National Geographic magazine, they published a 19-page article on hip hop, a musical (?) form with no melodies and lyrics referring to females as “hoes” and glorifying rape, murder and other types of violence. Perhaps next that journal will have a cover story on XXX movies as a version of visual expression.
This seems to be a prime example of the general and ubiquitous debasement of American culture. In April 2007, CBS News Sunday Morning featured a dog who painted canvases by scratching and biting paint covered squares. The results were indistinguishable from paintings now in modern art museums (and let us just ignore the chocolate nude Jesus statue). Even in the 1930s, Cole Porter decried the tendency of writers to use four-letter words. Last year 37 percent of all births were to unmarried mothers.
But before we mount our lofty professional pristine peaks of medical practice and cast down thunderbolts of scorn on Eminem, Don Imus and Jessie Jackson, we may need to ponder whether doctors have contributed to this rush to vulgarity.
In recent years there has been a tendency of doctors, nurses, custodians and half the people seen at Wal-Mart to dress in identical scrubs. Four-in-hand ties may harbor germs but they did signify that the doctor thought enough of his patients that he would attempt to appear formal (and as all pediatricians know, bow ties are safe from grabby fingers and doctor-directed streams of urine).
Why does the medical profession lose out to the legal profession when tort reform comes before a legislature? Why don't we receive the universal love and admiration we saintly physicians know in our heart of hearts that we justly deserve?
Perhaps it is a reaction to a non-emergency surgery patient first meeting her surgeon while she is strapped down on an operating table with IV dripping in her arm and an anesthesia mask hovering over her face and then not seeing him again until he magically appears at her hospital door to announce she is discharged and can go home.
Perhaps it is because numerous telephone calls are never returned and requests for medical records are postponed and forgotten.
Perhaps it is the parade of Porsches, Mercedes and Escalades going from elitist parking lots to Taj Mahal professional buildings.
We could go back to the likes of Osler and Halsted and find edifying examples of doctoral dignity. Can we imagine them running newspaper ads boldly offering to remove navel hair for only $25 or featuring busty ladies in poses that would make a Penthouse editor blush?
John and Abigail Adams exchanged letters of gentility and beauty written with quills dipped in slow drying ink that required a sand dispenser to dry. Then came Schaffer pens with rubber bladders that required blotters to prevent blurring and messages were urged to be brief and to the point. Following World War II, the ultimate corresponding weapon appeared — ballpoint pens. “Write dry with wet ink”! Even if the ink was ugly purple and the prose no better.
Today we e-mail spam that is as worthless and tasteless as the original canned meat Spam.
With the political scene in full swing and accusations and assertions bandied back and forth like shuttlecocks in a badminton game, comes the realization that civility and politeness are as rare as grace at a camp meeting. But it isn't just in the contentions of elections that those admirable qualities have disappeared. The genteel companionship and respectful manners of yesteryear are now absent from medicine.
When did the desire for more income outweigh the honor of being allowed to care for a peer's spouse, children or grandchildren and destroy “professional courtesy”? I am fully cognizant the clock cannot be turned back (except for “fall back” from daylight savings time in October). Change is inevitable. But I don't have to like it and I can assert that not all change is advancement.
There is no doubt that medical practitioners of all ilk today have access to and successfully perform procedures and utilize medications unknown in the past (quite another subject is whether such acts are humane and useful). But in considering the responsibility for the state of medical professional behavior, do we go with John Donne's “never send to know for whom the bell tolls” and/or Walt Kelly's Pogo lamenting “we have met the enemy and he is us”?
- Copyright 2008 Federation of State Medical Boards. All Rights Reserved.
