Throes of Illness, Essay Example

After reading the book review by Syd M. Johnson, a bioethicist and as of 2004 a Ph.D. candidate at SUNY Albany, I must admit that I wholly agree with author Jay Katz’s observation concerning the physician-patient relationship. I say this from my own personal experience in relation to being in the “throes of illness” and regressing to the mind of a child when the doctor delivered the bad news about my condition. In many ways, my doctor did become Katz’s caring and all-knowing parent because of his obvious superior knowledge about my condition and my possible future as his “infantile” patient. I must also agree wholeheartedly with Katz’s observation that physicians and patients must talk to one another as partners, meaning that the physician must reveal everything to the patient and vice versa. This is especially true in relation to patients playing “a more vital role in deciding whether to undergo tests and treatments that need not necessarily be performed” which in the long run would save money, time, and anguish. I also feel that Katz’s viewpoint is not dated, even though the first edition of his book The Silent World of Doctor and Patient was published twenty years ago when the physician-patient relationship was still lorded over by the doctor who knew everything while the patient knew nothing and was incapable of making intelligent and rational decisions about his/her healthcare. Johnson also agrees with this stance, due to stating that “Katz’s analysis of the problems remains relevant because the problems themselves continue to press” or influence the quality and ethics of healthcare. If anything, Katz’s viewpoint should be applauded and further explored in 2015, especially considering the power of the Internet in relation to allowing patients to become almost as well-informed as their physicians.

In today’s United States, it appears that the physician/doctor/surgeon continues to be the major decision-maker in the physician-patient relationship. However, due to the existence of managed health care organizations, such as HMO’s like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, many healthcare decisions are made by insurance companies, such as deciding to allow for a specific operation or some type of expensive medication. This question takes us back to my response above related to the fact that because of the Internet, patients can be much more informed on medical matters so long as they visit websites with high qualifications or read medical reports and research studies done by reputable researchers and of course peer reviewed. But in the 1890’s, things were very different indeed related to the physician-patient relationship. At this time, there were no insurance companies to provide payments to doctors for operations and patient treatment, so most patients had to pay for treatment out of their own pockets. However, there were “medical clubs” or organizations made up of families and individuals that shared the expenses. Thus, in some ways, today’s healthcare organizations are extensions of the “medical clubs” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is also true in relation to other types of entities found in the 1890’s like society clubs and gentleman’s clubs that shared the medical expenses for their members. There were also Poor Law services or “charitable dispensaries” which were much like today’s healthcare clinics for the underprivileged and financially strapped individuals and families. It should be mentioned that if a family was wealthy in the 1890’s, problems associated with paying for medical treatment were non-existent, much like those today who have no problems paying for their medical insurance.