A hot topic in medicine is the "impaired physician". There was a whole series in the throw-away journal Pain Medicine written by a doctor who spectacularly screwed his life up by getting addicted to opiate pain medications, then overprescribing those same drugs to patients and defrauding Medicare and Medicaid by charging for procedures that he didn't do. He proceeded to run off to various foreign countries where he managed to keep himself fed and housed until finally returning to the US to serve his time and probably not practice medicine. The articles he wrote were luridly exciting, definitely not in the category of "there but for the grace of God go I." Most of us in medicine have had contact with a colleague who has some kind of a substance abuse problem. I personally have had 3 colleagues with whom I worked closely who had trouble with both drugs and alcohol to the extent that their work was affected and they had to take time off, do a treatment program a...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.