Solipsism

We doctor bloggers are a solipsistic bunch: eager to indulge our egoistic self-absorption.

We are rule-followers after all. We have followed the rules, taken the required courses, marched lock-step to the corporately-mandated requirements for medical school, residency, fellowship, and beyond to get to our final goal as doctor of whatever specialty.

So when one reads the well-written trilogy by Panda Bear, MD outlining the problems with the single payer system being proposed by many, I ask myself: “Now what?”

Never has there been a push for a single payer system like there is now. And yet, we're like prisoners in jail snickering about the guards. The problem? We're still prisoners, aren't we?

How many of us know how to take such an articulate point of view, and take it to the next level? How many of us know our congressman’s or senator’s e-mail, phone number or address? How many of us will take our opinions to our elected legislator? Probably very few: solipsism requires we remain mute and ineffectual, hoping that the media will pick up what we have started.

But these issues are too complicated and important to leave to the media. The issues at hand are not served well by 30-second sound-bites on the news. We must do better.

So if you feel strongly about what people say out here on the blog-o-sphere, here’s a suggestion: contact your senator or congressman. Send them the link to the blog that matters to you. Write your own comments. Contact the Senate Subcommittee on Health Care. After all, using the Panda Bear anology: they’re the “junk-yard dog.”

So irrespective of your take on the issues, make your comments heard.

-Wes

Reference: Panda Bear MD’s Trilogy: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.