wasted posted:

discipline posted:
doctors in a for-profit healthcare system are suspect at best and vultures at worst
that's like anybody though. generally, people are only as good as the world allows them to be.

And they’re often as bad as the world let’s them be, and privileged, powerful positions like doctors, lawyers and politicians offer a scope for malfeasance that far outweighs any gangbanger or welfare fraud.

tpaine posted:

what's "the world" precious

the ideological and material conditions in which you live? but yea, kill all doctors and bring back homeopathic medicines and exorcists i suppose. or come up with a system where pharmaceutical companies don't have a disproportionate amount of influence on what medications are produced and how they are distributed/marketed, healthcare is universally provided, and where hospital staffs aren't reduced to cost-cutting utilitarian practices.

littlegreenpills posted:

even in countries w. universal healthcare hospital acquired infections are the single biggest cause of death with inpatients. of course this doesn't mean on average you're better off staying out of the hospital but among its causes is a fairly simple one - physicians and nurses aren't washing their hands enough

my ex-gf of a few years was a top-notch critical care nurse in the NYC area and wowow the stories. no doctors washed their hands before touching patients pretty much ever. especially very old rich top-25-in-the-us cardiologists. cardiac surgeons. etc. and she usually had to yell at residents to not do incredibly stupid patient-killing things.

most of the really awful things down there were about surgery decisions (yeah, sure, let's fuck around with the heart valves of this 85 year old lady with multiple complicating issues. she'll probably die but man what a neat case!) or post-op care (withholding pain meds from old people because their recovery pattern would be such that they will die out of hospital instead of in-hospital which lowers your scores). and you can yell at doctors but in the end you do have to follow their orders and procedures and you're usually prolonging agony or causing it and it's just such a fucking awful nightmare. cracking people's chests open so they don't suddenly die due to cardiac tamponade. i'd pick her up from work and be like "hey, i got you one of the bagels you like," as though that somehow makes 12 hours surrounded by torture and death totally fine

getfiscal posted:

the US has a special program designed to try to entice cuban doctors to defect. apparently a few thousand have done so. like the US deliberately tries to undermine 'doctor diplomacy' by going around to doctors stationed in venezuela and shit and being like "hey come to miami and we'll give you ducats"

yeah well if communism is so smart why doesn't it come up with better bribes

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

the idea that ideological commitment can outweigh material riches is about the most anti-materialist thing i've ever heard

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.

swampman posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
the idea that ideological commitment can outweigh material riches is about the most anti-materialist thing i've ever heard
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.

who said anything about "true revolutionaries" though. We're talking about doctors, or indeed any worker

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

Minority governments are massively gay

agreed, rahowa