Ostriches, Neville Chamberlain, and Doctors

On the Serengeti - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by Scott Sturman, M.D.

The United Auto Workers were at their best this week as they took to the streets in protest of Michigan’s Right to Work Law.  Woe to anyone who disagreed with their world view.  Despite inflated wages and the inability to compete without government subsidies, they were willing to put a fist in the face of anyone who felt otherwise.  At least one has to admire the passion and gall of a group whose skills can be easily outsourced to more efficient, non union automobile plants in the South.  To the union worker Right to Work is a call to arms and an invitation to resort to any means to prevent its implementation.

Doctors’ responses to Obama Care has been considerably more tepid.  Gaging the level of protest, one would think they were dealing with a minor traffic violation rather than being confronted with a program which will certainly destroy private practice medicine.  The promise of less independence and income with more restrictions and hours on the job and no talk of tort reform has done little to arouse the profession.  Rather than strike, punch a politician in the nose, or display abject anger to the public, doctors prefer to lay down hoping the outcome will not be all that bad.  They are team players and not confrontational by nature, so it best to avoid the withering censure of the media about selfishness and moral turpitude. 

Physicians require years of training, sacrifice, and expense to become competent.  The profession is utterly indispensable to society, but apparently its leaders prefer to disregard this bargaining tool.  Unlike the fire breathing UAW, physicians opt to complain among themselves and accept what has been thrust upon them.  This is a time for a Churchill not a Chamberlain, otherwise the profession resembles a gaggle of ostriches with their heads buried so deeply in the wrong place that it is unaware a battle needs to be fought.   

 Neville Chamberlain shows proof of Hitler's good intentions and proclaims "peace in our times."