13 November 2006

Do to others...

The Hippocratic oath supposedly morally binds medically trained personnel to help in case of need. In America, I've been told on occasion, medics are more afraid afraid of being sued than actually having people die at their hands... (A doctor friend of mine, just after graduating, was sitting peacefully in a tram when the tram hit an old lady. And the call "are there any doctors present?" passed unnoticed until she realised she was just that... She was horrified she'd do something wrong, still felt she had to help. And yes, all went well!)

Some of our friends were in the States a few years back. Their son had an accident - two of his fingers almost came off - and they ran off to the nearest hospital. A private, luxurious thing... They carried their son in, pointed at his bleeding hand, whereupon the medical secretary's face went blank and she said "payment?" They produced their travel insurance, to no avail, this was a private hospital that didn't deal with this kind of paperwork, they were told... Then our friends produced that kind of accordion-like wallet with credit cards - theirs were all gold and platinum - and suddenly the blank left the secretary's face and she seemed to remember all about Hippocrates and his oath, and the boys' fingers were stitched back on... Oh, and later, this hospital called every hour the next few days to make sure he was alright. Or, make sure they weren't sued, rather...

We haven't quite come that far over here... So when a Norwegian was travelling in the States (quite) a few years back, he was walking the streets of Las Vegas on a particularly hot day, and an elderly woman fainted just in front of him, he didn't shun the area, as everyone else seemed to do. He took her to shelter from the sun, had an ambulance called, and as noone seemed to know her he kept visiting her while he was in the city. A little while later, she died (not from the fainting thing..). With no family and, seemingly, no friends, she left all she had to the kind Norwegian...


He now owns what's apparently the largest limousine company in Las Vegas. There are a lot of these companies. I don't know which is his.
But if you're Norwegian, at least, and going to Las Vegas - it may be worth checking out. He'll chauffeur you himself, for free!

And in the meantime - wherever you are - perhaps Hippocrates wasn't such a nitwit...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful story of kindness... and kindness reciprocated.
The other not so much.

One of my pet peeves is people expecting doctors to be gods. Anything goes wrong and someone might sue. I have a former doctor friend who was sued for malpractice -- unpleasant experience and kind of ruined her life for awhile.

We live in a sue happy nation (about everything, so there is a lot of fear about everything), but others would argue the other side of the coin that it protects the patient... I somehow think the opposite is happening.

(OK, thanks for giving me my soap box of the morning! Have a good day!)