Last I checked, nurses =! physicians. Nor do we require a patient to come into a hospital when they sprain their wrist. If a patient comes in the emergency department with a suspected fracture, you bet your fucking ass we are going to xray it. If we didn't, you know how easy it would be to get sued without proper support and documentation? I am sorry; but, you are coming across a complete asswipe to the people who selflessly -- yes, I said SELFLESSLY -- take care of people. Just because we may get paid, does not make us greedy.
It's about ethics in health care. I was not talking about hitman. No, wait, I was talking about hitman.
Never said nurses are physicians nor that all physicians and nurses working in private sector were greedy. Just that greedy nurses would likely work in private sector, because the salaries go way up. The physician angle came in because I had to argue to some people that businesses primarily want to make money.
Look, it was a bad example and if I'd thought for a moment, I would not have used the wrist. Still, that hand specialist wrote on his marketing web page that if you got wrist pain from playing golf, waiting a week before seeing a doctor was ok, even advisable. What was the point of the example was that when you have a patient consumer who doesn't know anything about medicine, it's really easy to sell them all the imaging you can do and some that you can't, and they'll think they are getting excellent treatment when in fact there are more cost effective ways to go about it.
As I wrote earlier, no such thing as suing doctors for money here. Sure, intentional, or negligent enough to be nearly intentional (show up drunk, prescribe leeching, suckle a patient's breast) malpractice gets disciplinary action from the national medical association and the authority, but the patient gets compensated from State funds. Takes a ton of unnecessary pressure off doctors.
I suppose my ex-wife's opinion of the guys in her year who went private sector and crowed about the money, The Money, THE MONEY, (incidentally, they had displayed the least concern over patient wellbeing during clinical training. Totally unrelated, I'm sure.) may have influenced my opinion too much. But... I don't know. I wrote how much better it is to help people get better, not get even and you read 'health care professionals are greedy?' You gotta admit that choosing easier patients for more pay over less fortunate (i.e. the poor and the homeless) patients and lower pay does sound like choosing easier working conditions and more money, right?
None of the nurses and doctors I personally know work in private sector precisely because they know they are more needed in the public sector. Only 17% of nurses and doctors work private here in Finland. It's a core fucking value to all of them to treat people regardless of whether they can pay, are out of work, or in fact smell of both old and new vomit. So they work in public sector, not private. That, to me, is the more selfless and more admirable choice.
) but it's a severe mischaracterisation of the typical nurse or doctor to say that if they aren't paid well, they won't work as hard. Heck, the ex-wife didn't want to know money existed. That is, I think the typical nurse or doctor is entirely un-motivated by money over what they need to sustain a reasonable standard of living and may even be from the economics point of view irrational in that they'll report MORE satisfaction when the conditions are difficult. Will have to look into that.
