Doctors took the easy option, and lost our respect

In the Telegraph, Dalrymple criticizes British doctors for remaining passive in the face of government bureaucratic meddling, saying they have lost the respect of the public as a result:

[T]he government piled more bureaucratic tasks on to doctors. They have had more targets to reach (in return for higher emoluments). It’s natural for patients to suppose that if they can’t see the doctor of their choice within a reasonable time, it’s because he or she is too busy enjoying him or herself in leisure activities, rather than filling in forms or performing routine tasks mandated by the government. Often the doctor has seemed more interested in what the government had told him to do to patients, than in what patients have wanted him to do for them. The family doctor has come to be less a member of a liberal or learned profession than a bureaucrat carrying out directions.

Read it here

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