A Vivid Illustration of How Medicine Has Changed
This movie clip form the 1950s (Not As A Stranger) depicts Robert Mitchum as a doctor, trying to save the life of an elderly patient another doctor has written off as not worth treating. Mitchum discovers the patient has typhoid fever and saves the day.
Today, the scene would be written completely in the opposite manner. The "do nothing" doctor would be depicted as the hero and the aggressive doctor denigrated as either religious or fanatic. The patient would have Alzheimer's and the sympathy of the audience would be clearly directed on permitting death rather than saving life.
My, how times have changed.
HT: Jerri Ward and Bobby Schindler
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 2:47 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
That is an excellent scene capturing something of the essence of the present conflict. Thank you for hilighting this. You are a keen conoisseur for life.
Thanks. But Bobby Schindler and Jerri Ward laid it in my lap. All I did was post it.
How many lawyers are flanking the new Hollywood doc, some threatening him with murder and/or assault charges if he does treat, some telling him that he's already broken 8 or 9 'fraudandabuse' regulations, and some just generally disparaging his entire profession?
I do remember the Michael Caine movie about the 'doctor' who ran the orphanage and did abortions on the side. And the awards given to the pro-abortion film makers by fellow pro-abortion insiders and media-types.
Please don't act as though doctors have all become murderous in their intentions and actions. How much nicer it would have been to click on this site to read praise for the nobile tradition of medicine and the men and women who continue to fight for life.
I was referring to a few things. First, how the popular culture has changed. I can't imagine a Hollywood writer writing the scene depicted today. Second, how too often now, the benefit of the doubt goes to death. Third, the idea that oldsters could just be written off was beyond the pale then--Mitchum telling the do nothing doctor that his job is to keep them alive. Of course, we believe today that the patient depticted could have refused care, but the doctor should not abandon. Yet, with futile care theory, we approach the ends, if not the means of just allowing him to lie alone in a bed, depicted in the scene.
I most certainly was not attacking health care workers. They are in the trenches working valiantly under very trying conditions and a decidedly shifting ethical adtmosphere.
Mari: I am very sorry you had such a bad experience. I hear a lot of such stories. But we also need to remember that there are many nurses, doctors, social workers, chaplains, and administrators who work very hard to keep medicine ethical and care for their patients.
I could not be elected President. And Robert Mitchum is deceased. But we both thank you for your support.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home