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- Jan 1, 2008
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So here's a story about a fictional character, certainly not myself, in a fictional world (certainly not Army Medicine):
In this purely fictional world there's a man, lets call him "SchminSchmeki" who is in charge of a federal hospital system designed to take care of soldiers after they retire from being soldiers. He gets in a little trouble because under his watch it is discovered that the wait times for care are so long that they may be detrimental to patient care. Worse yet, some of his employees may have been keeping a false record of patient appointments, wherein the official record understates the wait times. This causes somewhat of an uproar, and reasonably so.
In this same purely fictional world, there is another federally operated healthcare system that takes care of soldiers before they retire. They hear the ruckus about ShcminSchmeki, and decide that they ought to be sure to not make the same mistakes that he has. We can all agree that this concern makes sense. So the people in charge of this other, completely fictional, system decide to take action. They analyze the situation and.....
Their recommendation is that no clinic in their system should have a list of patients of any kind.
Now...
I'm not a psychiatrist, but this seems like a lack of insight into the problem - and of the social norm that has been transgressed - to such a great extent that it seems sociopathic.
It's like a serial killer trying to figure out why you're so upset about his murdering kittens. He can't understand the fundamental problem, and so he assumes you're upset about the fact that he used your kitchen knife to do the murdering. "Sorry. Next time I won't use the kitchen knife....."
The problem, which I hope is plain to see, isn't the list. It's the detrimental wait times caused by understaffing, underfunding, and poor management.
Or am I the crazy one? I'm beginning to lose perspective......
In this purely fictional world there's a man, lets call him "SchminSchmeki" who is in charge of a federal hospital system designed to take care of soldiers after they retire from being soldiers. He gets in a little trouble because under his watch it is discovered that the wait times for care are so long that they may be detrimental to patient care. Worse yet, some of his employees may have been keeping a false record of patient appointments, wherein the official record understates the wait times. This causes somewhat of an uproar, and reasonably so.
In this same purely fictional world, there is another federally operated healthcare system that takes care of soldiers before they retire. They hear the ruckus about ShcminSchmeki, and decide that they ought to be sure to not make the same mistakes that he has. We can all agree that this concern makes sense. So the people in charge of this other, completely fictional, system decide to take action. They analyze the situation and.....
Their recommendation is that no clinic in their system should have a list of patients of any kind.
Now...
I'm not a psychiatrist, but this seems like a lack of insight into the problem - and of the social norm that has been transgressed - to such a great extent that it seems sociopathic.
It's like a serial killer trying to figure out why you're so upset about his murdering kittens. He can't understand the fundamental problem, and so he assumes you're upset about the fact that he used your kitchen knife to do the murdering. "Sorry. Next time I won't use the kitchen knife....."
The problem, which I hope is plain to see, isn't the list. It's the detrimental wait times caused by understaffing, underfunding, and poor management.
Or am I the crazy one? I'm beginning to lose perspective......