I was a sorcerer in AD&D. Here I hope to be interesting--at least to someone.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Self-Responsibility

Have you ever found yourself wishing for something utterly impossible?

Recently, I've been wishing that professionals (doctors, lawyers, businessmen, etc.) would take responsibility for their actions. I realize the impossibility of the concept; who wants to open him-/herself to potential (likely) legal action?

So it's impossible. Still, somewhere in the back of my mind is a wishful thinker, someone who hasn't yet been plowed under by the cynicism that otherwise permeates my brain.

Yes, there is a reason for my wish... I wish I could get an apology from the doctor who told me that the cause of the loss of hearing to my left ear (when I was twelve) was a heretofore unknown virus, and that we'd probably never identify it; so don't worry about it.

He prescribed hearing tests for me, tests which had no use except to get more insurance money moving into his accounts. Sometimes I get so angry at his lack of caring that I want to throw something. I was aware that I might have VHL (Von Hippel Lindau Disease); so was he. The information was listed all over my records. If he had just been willing to pay my records a little more attention; if he had been willing to get an X-ray of my head each year, instead of the hearing tests--or even with them--he would have discovered the tumor long before my 18th birthday, and I wouldn't gone through all kinds of hell getting the damned thing removed (it was bigger than my fist by then).

Unfortunately, too many people have learned that a simple mistake on the part of a professional can often be the stimulus for a financial profit by way of a lawsuit. And thus, said professionals clam up; they will never make the effort to accept responsibility for their mistakes, largely due to their attorneys' telling them that their malpractice insurance is null-and-void should they do so.

This is yet another example of why I believe self-responsibility has gone the way of the Dodo Bird; extinction was inevitable.

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