Based Kantian
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- Sep 5, 2020
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Generally speaking, the physician today has an interest in seeing the sick get well, but none that people be healthy and not become ill. So-called professional ethics can at best obfuscate but not change this state of affairs, for it is rooted in the socio-economic position of most physicians. The psychological exception confirms the rule. The socioeconomic position also governs the relationship between physicians and drugs. Their interests determine the kinds of medical chemicals that will be manufactured, and those which are available and might serve the pres- ervation of good health are used only in modest quantities. In the higher interest of its cooperation with physicians, the pharmaceutical industry must sacrifice certain advantages. And although its advertising brings it a great deal of money, the press prefers to side with the doctors. The publicity the shortcomings of antidotes to cholesterol or the overrating of synthetic vitamins, not to mention a non-prescription, harmful sleeping pill have received is immea-surably more comprehensive than information about the unnecessary suffering of uncounted thousands of insomniacs who become depressed, prone to illness and incapable of work because they do not use barbituric acid. The not unfounded reservations about cardiac medicines which can prevent heart attack if taken in time
seem infinitely more weighty than the number of harried individuals whom they might protect from catastrophe. That such examples are arbitrary and weighted proves what they stand for, i.e., that physicians have little interest in substantive, detailed information about means for maintaining good health and would rather give up and talk about diet than about the pills which make it unnecessary. Vis-a-vis the patient, they act the great expert, the modem magician whom a gulf separates from the layman. Pitiable high school students who have no contact whatever with physics are plagued by algebra, analytic geometry and even calculus, but they hear not an iota about the methods and function of medicine. It is not up to the physician’s customer to ask questions and to make demands; it is his role to suffer, he is the patient The physician does not look for clients as the manufacturer does for customers, he is searched out, and the more society progresses, the more insistent the regressive claim to privilege becomes. The more the role of the practical physician becomes identical with that of a test mechanic or agent of specialized surgeons, the more exclusively he becomes someone that places orders with and represents the pharmaceutical industry. Vis-à-vis the public, he is omnipotent. Society hands him his monopolistic position on a platter. Billions are spent for bombs and rockets, but hospitals and schools remain too small. The men in charge can therefore do as they please, and without incurring the hazards of free competition. There is so much work that imagination becomes unnecessary. The only reason to keep people in good health would be that the mere abundance of the ill becomes burdensome. But their number keeps the physicians so busy that they don’t have the time to worry about the healthy. Besides, the mass of those waiting in their offices also has its advantages. The Chinese custom that one pays one’s doctor as long as one is healthy and stops when one becomes ill was the feudal dream of the burgher which he has to forget about nowadays.
Decline: Notes 1950-1969
seem infinitely more weighty than the number of harried individuals whom they might protect from catastrophe. That such examples are arbitrary and weighted proves what they stand for, i.e., that physicians have little interest in substantive, detailed information about means for maintaining good health and would rather give up and talk about diet than about the pills which make it unnecessary. Vis-a-vis the patient, they act the great expert, the modem magician whom a gulf separates from the layman. Pitiable high school students who have no contact whatever with physics are plagued by algebra, analytic geometry and even calculus, but they hear not an iota about the methods and function of medicine. It is not up to the physician’s customer to ask questions and to make demands; it is his role to suffer, he is the patient The physician does not look for clients as the manufacturer does for customers, he is searched out, and the more society progresses, the more insistent the regressive claim to privilege becomes. The more the role of the practical physician becomes identical with that of a test mechanic or agent of specialized surgeons, the more exclusively he becomes someone that places orders with and represents the pharmaceutical industry. Vis-à-vis the public, he is omnipotent. Society hands him his monopolistic position on a platter. Billions are spent for bombs and rockets, but hospitals and schools remain too small. The men in charge can therefore do as they please, and without incurring the hazards of free competition. There is so much work that imagination becomes unnecessary. The only reason to keep people in good health would be that the mere abundance of the ill becomes burdensome. But their number keeps the physicians so busy that they don’t have the time to worry about the healthy. Besides, the mass of those waiting in their offices also has its advantages. The Chinese custom that one pays one’s doctor as long as one is healthy and stops when one becomes ill was the feudal dream of the burgher which he has to forget about nowadays.
Decline: Notes 1950-1969
