We all know the focus is to save money, but at what cost, the relationships that we enjoy as people, especially important when we need healing and depend on our 
doctors to help us. Granted we have a lot more information online today and should take advantage as patients to be better informed, but what may patients may not see or realize is the push on the other side that affects the doctors in all of this.
In the clip here the first thing the doctor says she would change would be the “reimbursement and billing” systems used – get rid of billing and coding. I could not agree with her more on this as I have done and do billing and the average patient has no clue as to what this nightmare is. Its is the 800# gorilla hiding behind each practice office that everyone tries to keep in the closet for the most part so as not to interfere with the patient experience, but sometimes it does get out and makes things awkward and difficult.
The one doctor is working in 2 offices and is talking about going to work for Kaiser Permanente and she works part time at Blockbuster to get health insurance herself. This is a doctor not too long out of residency.
From the Website:
“Did you know that 60% of doctors today are dissatisfied with their practice of medicine? Our first feature length film is borne out of the dark frustrations of a Boston doctor who refused to ignore that, every day, we are losing good doctors.
Dr. Ryan Flesher’s raw and unscripted look at himself and his own place in medicine provides a unique revelation that our modern day healers have long held silent.
Being a physician today carries a complexity and responsibility, known only to those whom are expected to tend to the ills of society. But when doctors are suffering themselves - who really cares? We are all patients and come the day that we allow for money to supersede humanity, we all become collateral damage.
Dr. Flesher, driven by the altruism that brought him into medicine, with camera in hand, will pull back the curtain. In so doing, he becomes both observer and participant in this unique exploration into the psyche of physicians today.”
The movie has a web site and you can find it here along with a page of several other videos trailers to watch to include one on the fears of malpractice. I watch a lot of frustration from the doctor’s side and many are not getting a good break today and with technology and other pressures running rampid, especially with insurance companies trying to leave them out of the loop in some areas and telling them how they need to practice medicine, yes the feelings heard here are true. 
We have a strange sensation of what we call balance in healthcare today with emerging technologies and how they get implemented. When the IPad came out some of my fellow bloggers became IPad bloggers for about 2 weeks and it’s good to have them back, and what I am saying here is the obsession to the point of utter distraction and disruption with technology. I love the new stuff but do keep in mind I have come back to earth after a few minutes. On the other hand I encounter the tech denial folks who hate everything I represent with technology and hear nothing but complaining and negative comments there, and those are mostly the ones who really don’t like change, so if we can hit somewhere in the middle between compulsive obsession and denial we might be going somewhere.
Also, check out Money Driven Medicine too for another documentary from last year that is excellent and you get to hear the doctors talk there too.
MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE – The Movie (Official Trailer)
Unfortunately health literacy is not going anywhere fast with efforts as such from HHS being totally out of tune with reform and how they relate to the American Public as the mountains are not coming to Mohamed any time soon and we lack tremendously with most of them displaying any signs of caring as well. We get get a good show and more technology thrown out there that people don’t know how to use, but that’s about it, and I mention this as their actions and how they perceive solutions is way out of touch as they never roll up their own sleeves today and still prescribe to the paradigm of “its for those guys over there” and those guys are us, the doctors and the patients.
HHS National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – Not Going To Happen Until We Focus on Using Technology (The Tool for Literacy) Which Includes Role Models at HHS And Other Places in Government
The government actions of many being non participants just stands to delay progress and continues to indulge the “for profit” algorithmic mechanisms of Wall Street which is lives in their own world of make believe. With tech denial at such a high rate throughout out leaders, we get the tech bytes and bits dumped on us and leaders have no clue of the huge impact this is creating for the citizens as technology is throwing us a new left curve every day and they just don’t see it and the best we can hope for is to be lucky enough to get another website or blog that they say “will be good for us” and when the real truth is known, they can’t use the tools on there themselves. Sad, but this is greatly what is contributing to the strain of the human patient-doctor relationships today. BD
The Vanishing Oath (excerpt) from Lisa Molomot on Vimeo.
You can also buy the film on Amazon for $21.99 or use your PayPal account to purchase. I just came across this today and looks like I need to get a copy to watch myself after viewing the trailers.
Nancy Pando knew she wanted to make a documentary, she just didn’t know what the film would be about..
“Dr. Flesher turned to me and said, ‘I hate being a doctor.’ He was 35 at the time. All of that education and all of that debt ahead of him and he hated being a doctor,” Pando, a social worker from Boston, said. “I’d never heard any doctor say that so I turned to him and said, there’s the documentary.”
After more than four years of filming, Pando and Flesher’s film, “The Vanishing Oath,” was completed. The movie is about the many obstacles that lie between patients and physicians.
“People often say the doctor kept me waiting, but that’s not the doctor’s fault. It’s all of the obstacles in between. Insurance companies, malpractice insurance, joint commission, it’s all the same bureaucratic machine,” Pando said. “What they’re doing is tying the hands of doctors. Untrained hands are really determining our care.”
The film premiered at Moraine Valley Community College on May 25. Palos Heights physician Dr. John Principe organized its showing.
Since making “The Vanishing Oath” open to the public, online, on May 5, Pando says reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.
The Reporter: Filmmaker delves into doctor-patient relations
Wow, watch the 4 minute video clip, I could not have said it better myself. and this doc has only been out a few years, it only gets worse, because you don't really get the luxury to "burn out" as a physician, you just get to keep going. Everything she said is true and so politically incorrect, NO ONE really wants to hear it, but it is so true. She is the true voice of all doctors in this country, unfortunately the official voice for physicians comes from those docs that really don't have to take care of patients all day, consequently they are way out of touch, (yet politically correct) and the cycle continues
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