Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Getting Paid

Ok, so now I started seeing some patients. Mostly referred by other doctors I know. The good thing about is: I haven't forgotten medicine, at least the important part of it, and I feel important in a society again trying to make a difference in someone's life... or its end.
The bad thing about it is: I have to get paid. Although strange but it never occured to me that I would be naming my price for a consultation or so. I feel weird, ashamed to do it, and also feels wrong. One would say and how is it that I am going to make a living.. and they are right.
I prefer not to take money, maybe have someone else do that... But what I come to believe in more, at least at the moment, that doctors shouldn't be paid by patients and shouldn't have to ask for money. So a system like medical insurance gets you your paycheck, occasionally, but it has its own problem. Or a system like the one I trained in last in USA: an independent big institution that pays you and all you have to do is worry about your patients. Your salary is in your pocket as long as good standards are met and good work is acheived.
Another thought, that is very racist maybe, is that medicine should only be practiced by those who are very wealthy to start with so they don't have to get paid by people to make a living (maybe they would have some other business or good inheritance).
It is something one would get used to, no doubt, but so far feels wrong :( and part of it goes probably to the fact that I always got paid during training to do my job and interact with a human not an ATM machine.

3 Comments:

At Sun Dec 11, 12:56:00 AM GMT+2, Blogger GraY FoX said...

lol ... damn right you will get used to it .. but it's great to have that kind of mercy inside of you ;)
and hey human beings are better as ATM's than real ATM's cuz they are guaranteed to pay you :D

 
At Sun Dec 11, 11:45:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger Ghalia said...

I really appreciate that in u, and wish u good luck from all my heart, at least u r a uman and that's abvious through ur writings.

 
At Thu Dec 15, 02:04:00 PM GMT+2, Blogger Bassam said...

Thanks to you all.
Being a human is a center piece in medicine. To feel others suffering and pain or understand it and try to ease it is not always an easy thing to do. And that is not measured by money.
I didn't get the chance to meet that kind of patients, Maher, but if they have financial problem, they'd better keep their money as they need it more than I.

 

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