Oh If We Were Only Senators

Re:  Recent Bailout – a medical perspective and analogy, from a colleague.

To my fellow emergency physicians,

         Watching all the senators pat themselves on the back last night for coming together on this bailout gave me a little dyspepsia, so I had to throw together this medical analogy – one which I’m sure your medical side will appreciate:

          A middle aged male comes to the ER for increasing chest pains, has his cursory evaluation, following which he is sent home on stomach medicine.  This occurs several times over the course of many months.  He then comes back in with crushing chest pain and an obvious Heart Attack.  The physician now treats him with thousands of dollars worth of medications and he is flown to a nearby heart center for emergency bypass surgery, following which he survives – with many complications and a $300K bill.

          The physician’s partners congratulate him on a job well done and another life saved, but he should have been sued, had his medical license revoked and certainly should not have been paid for the visit. 

                Oh if we were only senators