A serious question: Do Dentists not have to swear by the Hippocratic Oath??
Not that swearing by the Oath implies that all dentists, by association, will indeed be honest... Or the opposite, tbh.
Just curious.
I always found it (still find it) rather curious that the United States, despite being such an advanced nation / economy with pockets of excellence in medicine care, still has such crumbling, disparate and highly unequal medical care.
It doesn't, really, tbh... One just feels that Doctors would offer the care that starts with "do no harm".
And I say this as the child of two Doctors from developing countries who spent their ~50 year working lives serving under-served communities, with little to no material benefit to themselves.
IMHO the whole medical + healthcare industry in the US is so incredibly complex with so many misaligned incentives -- mostly away from the end user/consumer -- that the various attempts to reform the system have themselves have created their own set of perverse incentives.
Not to say that medical care in the US isn't top-notch... It indeed is, its just that the comparative bang-for-the-buck in the US is much less than in other developed economies (e.g. western europe, canada, etc.).
Which is why I when I see Doctors / labs / hospitals 'scamming' patients in various ways, it feels like every player is only optimizing (locally!) for themselves than for the end user. Just so utterly demoralizing...
>One just feels that Doctors would offer the care that starts with "do no harm".
Well there is more to it that meets the eye. A medical student I hear has half a million in student debt when he/she starts working. So even the simple "do no harm" philosophy is thrown out of the window. All in all (like you pointed out) It's a complete mess. There are ways to fix the issue but it is counter-intutive to most people.
Not that swearing by the Oath implies that all dentists, by association, will indeed be honest... Or the opposite, tbh.
Just curious.
I always found it (still find it) rather curious that the United States, despite being such an advanced nation / economy with pockets of excellence in medicine care, still has such crumbling, disparate and highly unequal medical care.