Put the Patient First

"The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease." — Sir William Osler

Sir William Osler is considered the father of bedside medicine. 

Today, Dr Osler's advice is more pertinent than ever. I constantly hear about the medical system treating reimbursement instead of treating the patient. Our system is not a great system when it puts reimbursement from the government, or reimbursement from the insurance company, first. Why don't we create a system that puts the patient first? We have the technology to do it today.

To fix the system, patients need power and control over their money, so the first question when you go get healthcare would be, "How can we help you?" Not, "Are you Medicare or Insurance?"

We also need to stop having Guidelines. What we call guidelines today are usually just medical opinions from a government group. For example, we should call them CDC Opinions or NIH Opinions to recognize that any individual physician around the world might actually be the greater expert. Calling them opinions instead of guidelines would also recognize the subjective nature of the field of medicine. Medicine is not yet a hard science.

Guidelines are not evidence-based medicine.

Evidenced-based medicine means taking into account the values and preferences of the patient. Thus, evidence-based medicine is personalized medicine, not guidelines.