Cuts, Despair & Opportunity

Students must understand delayed gratification to succeed in school.

The best students go without food and rest.

They dream of ways to work longer and harder.

Top students use simple math: suffering now equals reward later.

Delayed gratification animates doctors. In some ways, it founds the core of our being.

Delayed gratification presupposes hope of tangible success: meaningful work, autonomy and respect, in a dependable career.

Cuts, Cuts and More Cuts

The early 2000s brought raises for doctors: pay back for a decade of ‘social contract’ cuts through the 1990s. Doctors’ incomes finally caught up with their inflation-adjusted incomes from the ‘90s around 2012.

Politicians called the catch up a gravy train. So they cut fees in: Continue reading “Cuts, Despair & Opportunity”

Healthcare Crisis – Video

We cannot drain an abscess before we believe it exists. No one argues that Canada has the best healthcare system in the world anymore. At least no one who pays attention.

I want to hear what you think about the short video below.

In it, I look at our healthcare crisis through waits, patient leaving Canada for care and bureaucratic load. I offer solutions at the end.

Thanks for watching!

Human Cost of Wait Times

Cool heads make hard choices for the greater good, in war. Innocent people die. Others survive. War is utilitarianism writ large.

Healthcare experts often sound like military.

“As for urgent patients in pain, the public system will decide when their pain requires care. These are societal decisions. The individual is not able to decide rationally.” So said a past VP Medicine from BC.

Here’s a personal story from someone in pain, shared with permission. Continue reading “Human Cost of Wait Times”