Ahh Obamacare, it is upon us, and it is a mess. The one thing everyone can agree on is that the future remains uncertain. No one knows what medicine will look like in 1 year, to say nothing about 5 or 10 years from now.
The main things that keep medicine interesting are the patients. Everyone has a story, and no two people are quite the same. No matter how much a bureaucrat wants to reduce everyone to a data point, people remain quite unique and uncategorizable.
I recently saw a young lady with shortness of breath. She appeared to have primary pulmonary hypertension and this was eventually confirmed after an endoscopic biopsy of her lung. This can be a devastating diagnosis, especially for someone in their 20s. Fortunately treatments have come a long way. The trick is not to lose the person behind the diagnosis.
Another patient springs to mind, mainly for his tenacity and resilience in the face of worsening odds. He had a skin tumor and underwent radical excision of the lesion. This was a wide excision involving underlying and adjacent structures, but nevertheless it was surprising that a subsequent infection led to endocarditis.
What does the future hold for these brave patients? Nobody knows. Humpty-dumpty has been pushed from the wall, and all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men won’t be able to put him back together again. Hopefully we can keep the doctor-patient relationship intact and not reduce everyone to numbers.
The find on this one shouldn’t be too difficult, once you get the numbers…Note for future finders, please stay in compliance with 2013 standards.
Are you in compliance?