Tuesday, July 23, 2013
The Transition from Individuals to Institutions
A recent experience served as an example of the trend in
health care of relying on institutions rather than individuals.
Wife Marilyn has for some time known that she had a cataract
that would eventually require repair.
Recently, she decided that the time had come. She called for an appointment with her
Ophthalmologist, only to learn that he had suffered a major stroke and died.
An appointment was then made with another Ophthalmologist in
that same group. She saw him once in
clinic and yesterday underwent cataract surgery at his hands.
While sitting in the waiting room during the procedure, it
occurred to me that the only thing we knew about the surgeon performing surgery
on my wife’s eye was that he was a member of a large, well known and well
regarded group of ophthalmologists. I
couldn’t even remember his name. Without
thinking about it, we had placed our full confidence in the organization; i.e.,
the group, trusting that whoever it allowed to do surgery was competent.
I suspect that some version of the same was true of the
other dozen or so people in the waiting room.
The surgery was successful.
