It's My Life! A Doctor Has a Right to His Own Life
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
By: Jonathan Rosman, M.D.

A doctor has a right to work for himself, and to charge such fees as he deems his expertise to be worth.

When I came to the United States from South Africa as a young doctor 17 years ago, I was excited. I was leaving behind an oppressive, racist regime, and I was entering a country founded on the inviolable rights of an individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I did not expect to find a political system trying to enslave me.

Doctors in this country do not seem to have the same rights as other Americans. We are regarded as public servants who are expected to selflessly sacrifice our time and resources to satisfy the needs of our patients--that is, we are expected to be altruists. For example, emergency room specialists and anesthesiologists are already required to do pro bono work, and managed care and Medicare continually try to squeeze more effort out of us under increasingly oppressive bureaucratic oversight, for less and less reward.

Every doctor, like individuals in other jobs, has a right to work for himself and for his own enjoyment, and to make a ton of money at it if he can. As individuals, doctors have a right to offer their patients treatment according to their best judgment, and to charge such fees as they judge their expertise to be worth. Conversely, patients have the right to accept or reject our advice and services, and to shop around for the best deals they can get.

Having the right to your life does not guarantee health or medical treatment at the doctors' expense, but it does guarantee that every individual has the freedom to seek whatever treatment he wishes, according to his own judgment and his own means. Individual rights means the freedom to act within one's means; it does not mean an entitlement to the goods and services provided by others.

However, not only have American doctors been stripped of their professional freedom by all the various oversight agencies (which include licensing boards, the Health Care Financing Administration, managed care companies, peer review committees and more), but--more important--they have also been morally disarmed. Our intellectuals have taught doctors that need comes before ability, and that healthy and rich doctors have a duty to support sick and poor patients. They have taught doctors that the consumers of medical services (patients) are morally superior to the providers of medical services (doctors), just because the consumers are in need.

Bureaucrats have eagerly latched on to this altruistic idea, and have erected a maze of welfare laws and regulations to satisfy the needs of the poor and the sick, and to "protect" them from "greedy" doctors. Thanks to these controls, it has become very difficult for doctors to think or to act freely on their own judgment. And it is the best doctors, the most dedicated and those least ready to relinquish their independent judgment, who have been the first to leave the practice of medicine when doctors' rights were trampled on. Who will ultimately be left if this trend continues? To quote Dr. Hendricks in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, "Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it--and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't."

To save American medicine, American doctors need to be saved from altruism. To accomplish this, doctors must vigorously challenge the invalid notion of a "right" to health care. Nobody has a right to an antibiotic made by someone else, just as he does not have a right to someone else's car.

Nobody has a right to have his gallbladder removed, just as he does not have a right to have his toilet fixed by a plumber. No one has a right to demand that a doctor treat him, but doctors do have rights, just as do auto workers and plumbers, to practice their profession (or trade) free from coercion.

To save themselves, doctors must proclaim openly that they refuse to regard themselves as anyone's servants. They should be left free to enjoy their careers as they see fit. It is important that as doctors we assert our moral right to be free. On the issue of their rights, doctors need to be inflexible and intransigent. They need to declare openly and loudly, "It's my life--hands off!"

Freedom is the dream that as a young doctor I was looking for 17 years ago. It is still possible to realize it today if we doctors defend our moral right to our lives.

Dr. Rosman, a psychiatrist in private practice in Pasadena, is a senior writer for theAyn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

What about the patients freedom. He has the freedom to die if he can't afford the best treatment. Thats some choice. For a doctor to be able to make a great living, I have no qualms with! in a free market medical system where there was a national health care system, the great doctors could charge rich patients like "you" exorbitant prices for their services and still perform their services for the govt. mandated price for those whom could not afford it. The creme of doctors would rise to the top and only work on wealthy patients, thereby assuring the rich motherfuckers still got the best money could buy, but in the same instant, the poor motherfuckers would be assured some value of treatment. Aren't the doctors supposed to live by the hypocratic oath or something like it, instead of their accountants code! Come on Vi, look at the positive side of universal health care. Maybe they could help all the street crappers to find a better life and stop defecating on your pressious commute!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

in a free market medical system where there was a national health care system, the great doctors could charge rich patients like "you" exorbitant prices for their services and still perform their services for the govt. mandated price for those whom could not afford it.

Any system whereby the government dictates prices is NOT a free market.

"Come on Vi, look at the positive side of universal health care. Maybe they could help all the street crappers to find a better life and stop defecating on your pressious commute!"

It would never happen Med. Liberal organizations like the ACLU and communists like you would complain that to round them up for medical care would be in violation of their right to shit on the sidewalk.

Vi

PS: "Pressious" is spelled Precious.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

You are incorrigible, wanking me on spelling. I don't spell check and anyway that was obviously a mistake. I type with 2 fingers but my fingers are so large sometimes I hit 2 keys at the same time. Look, A universal health care program is necessary and affordable if we give up some of our military budget, and stop the wars. If we left Afganistan and Iraq, the terrorists would calm down, then we could concentrate on making this country truly safer and a better place for all. We're always going to have the mentally disabled with us, my stepson is a schizophrenic, his is mostly controlled with medicine, but if he didn't have us, he would be a street rat. We sacrificed for him and made his life a lot easier. thank God we could afford to help him or he'd be on the streets, we bought him a condo and to help finance the place he has to have a couple of roommates which we picked from people we knew that were less fortunate than us, but good people, and they actually help with our son! Calling the mentally challenged crazy might be easy for you, and I can see humor in crazy, but there's no humor in having a relative that has that condition. You'd be surprised at how many schizophrenics there are. Some are just a little Bi-polar, and others like our son, are fucked up big time If he didn't have the family support as a lot of those you were referring to don't, he'd probably be dead by now. I don't understand people that act like you, you have no compassion for others, no ability feel what others must be going through. Do you ever look at someone less fortunate than you and think, "there but for the Grace of God goes me"! I'm starting to think you're a little psychopathic!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

"If we left Afganistan and Iraq, the terrorists would calm down"

Oh, really Med? And were they "calmed down" when they flew the planes into the Trade Centers and the Pentagon? To my knowledge we wern't in Afganistan or Iraq prior to 9-11.

"but if he didn't have us, he would be a street rat. We sacrificed for him and made his life a lot easier. thank God we could afford to help him or he'd be on the streets, we bought him a condo and to help finance the place he has to have a couple of roommates which we picked from people we knew that were less fortunate than us, but good people, and they actually help with our son! Calling the mentally challenged crazy might be easy for you, and I can see humor in crazy, but there's no humor in having a relative that has that condition."

What? No mention of how you needed the federal government to step in? You have reacted to your son's needs in exactly the way you should have ... with personal responsibility. If you didn't have the resources, then you could have turned to family, then friends, then private charity ... and then to your church. If all of that failed, then perhaps local government could have helped. You live in Nevada ... please explain how your son's ailment should be paid for by someone who lives in Tennessee. Thanks ...

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

In this regard all I can say to you is Fuck you you sniveling reprobate, may you roast in Hell!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

"In this regard all I can say to you is Fuck you you sniveling reprobate, may you roast in Hell!"

Ah yes ... the mind of a liberal/communist in full force! When backed into a corner with all of your assertions laid bare for what they are ... nothing but hate, envy, jealousy, greed and hot air, just resort to personal attacks. Med ... you are so typical of your breed ... and so very transparent. A pox on ya.

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

How about may your arm pits be infested by the fleas of a thousand camels?

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

How about " may a centipede crawl up your ass and die"

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.