Is DrRich too mercenary?
My Dearest DR. RICH,
I understand you pointing out the pro and cons of the Full Body CT SCAN, but I think that you
bring in the money word way too much. I understand why you don't like Health insurance companies. MONEY is only MONEY !!
If a person wants to spend it on their health information "that is their own business and probably a good one".
I think that you should not discourage people from trying to see what is going on inside their bodies. Stop worrying so much about $$$ and start
enjoying your life.
We may not have a lot of degrees on our walls but we are not STUPID! What can (the CT
scan) hurt? But like I said, I do like hear the other side of the story and I thank you for that but I do hear a lot of money talk from your angle. Remember money
is no good if you're Dead.
Thank you for thanking the time to read my letter.
Yours truly,
E.G.
DrRich replies:
Dear E.G.,
Thanks very much for your letter.
Actually, except for the fact that my article was on the Ultrafast CT and not the full body CT, I completely agree with you.
If people want to spend their own money on CT scans (or just about anything else), by all means they should do so. The point of my article on CT scans, for instance, was to inform people of the pros and cons of this procedure (and there are both), so that if they
choose to spend their own money on it, they would do so from a more informed perspective. In fact, my chief operating philosophy for this entire website is that people should be making
more of their own healthcare decisions (doctors being so compromised these days), and need to be informed in order to do so.
My only problem with the "money angle" in medicine is when doctors, hospitals, HMOs, etc. use money as a major (and sometimes the only) motivating factor in deciding what to do with
other people's bodies. I plead guilty to occasionally becoming quite exercised over this issue. (I was, in fact, pretty subdued in the CT scan article. If you really want to see me go off on the "money angle" check out
http://www.YourDoctorintheFamily.com.)
But, again, thanks for your letter, and for your good advice.
DrRich
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