Tell that to the people grinding 60 hour weeks in meaningless corporate America making 60k to have the chance to make 6 figures one day, everything is relative
And tell me, do those people feel that they are literally grinding the very meat and bones, the actual flesh of other living human beings, while they are still alive, into grist for the capitalist industriomedical complex, knowing they are causing direct harm to another human being's body, for money? It's worse than prostitution that way, at least in that case when you **** the customer they actually enjoy it even while you give them HIV.
Yes, when people tell you how awful it is to work for corporate medicine compared to other industries, they often don't preface the statement saying what a mistake it is *for people who are altruistic to have to harm people directly*. How about not even particularly idealist types, just the normal human empathy the average bloke possesses, is severely challenged.
There is truly something degrading to the soul to day in day out put your hands on that many people a day, being forced to reduce them to someone else's increased profits and watching them suffer, like they're nothing, and for no reason than to save money to increase the bottom line. When I think of what medical school taught me, and I know is optimal care, and then I think of the way that is compromised and set aside in the actual practice of medicine today, it makes me physically ill.
The flavor of that is likely a touch less dramatic in say derm than in hospital IM, but the reality of what laying hands that hurt people who don't want to be hurt, for money, does to you, cannot be overstated.
To be honest, I felt more honor and dignity when I used to work sorting garbage for $6.10 an hour, or washing dishes, than a lot of days working in the hospital.
You ever work in a memory care center? The kinda places where you know people are breaking hips and getting bedsores just because you know you're understaffed and there isn't enough money to see that the residents are seen to? It's a few steps up from that inpatient, but being paid 15 times as much per hour doesn't actually make the emotional cost less, actually. Maybe it makes it worse. They've done studies to that effect, I'll save that for the next post.
For some people, it's really hard to know you've hurt another person that was trusting you, because you made a mistake, but you did your best. I can still sleep at night, but it's not as easy. It's not much easier when you know the right thing and can't do it, because you'll get in trouble with the hospital because of profits. The patient suffers. And you could do a better job in theory, but the way medicine is structured as a business, you can't.
The article points out that there's something special about the industry and applying the profit motive that doesn't exist the same way in other industries.
But sure, dismiss the article and tell yourself it isn't that bad, it's worse elsewhere.