A Daughter's View of an Old Fashioned Doctor
We get mail in response to our "Just-Right Medicine" newsletter. (Not too much, not too little.)
Jun 13, 2012
Posted by: Douwe Rienstra, MD
I liked the newsletter. It reminds me of my dad, who is a retired ENT doc and a very "eccentric" man. He is to me, a "real" doctor, someone who entered the profession because he wanted to help people. I remember even as a child I perceived my Dad's nobility in this regard: he made house calls, he didn't charge people who obviously had no funds, and he refused to do unnecessary testing like the other doctors who were in it for the money.
The tragic part is that he eventually gave up because he wasn't the best businessman and he also got sued by a patient. She was to have both ears operated on, one at a time, and thought that the right ear was happening but the surgery team accidentally prepped her for the left and my Dad went ahead with it. She was encouraged to sue for medical malpractice, although nothing negative actually befell her due to my father's actions. He was disheartened by the direction that his beloved profession was taking so dropped out.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
A Loving Daughter