Do doctors really care about their patients or is it just a business?

Question

Do doctors really care about their patients or is it just a business?

Answer 1

Depends, if i'm a doctor and i give somebody i've never seen before a checkup, i probably wont remember them.

If they're a regular patient that i'm helping to treat, then i'll probably take more of an interest in them.

Answer 2

I don't think patients can comment on whether doctors care about there patients or not because the patients are not the ones who practically dedicated their life to studying and long hours of work(obviously they choose to do it as they mostly enjoy it). There are probably some doctors who would not really care about the patients but they aren't scamming them and trying to make money out of them they would just be mean people. So most doctors really care about their patients .. especially GPs who wake up in the middle of the night to go see a sick patient.

Answer 3

Depends on the doctor.  Some care and some don't.

The doctors who don't care (we would be blind to not acknowledge that there are some out there) aren't necessarily treating their profession as a business.  Some of the ones I have met don't care since they studied medicine just because they could.  Others became doctors because they perceive themselves to be in a position of power.

Thankfully they aren't all like that and, quite frankly, where would we be without the ones who do care?  They have my respect.

P.S. Just quietly, I have spent 8 years around pharmacists and they're a mixed bunch: some are worth their weight in gold and the local community revolves around them and others...it's a waste of words.

Answer 4

I think most doctors care about their patients.  It's the pharmaceutical companies and HMO's that could give a sh*t about anyone.

Answer 5

This is really kind of insulting.  Of course physicians care about their patients. We work long hours while others are home playing, trying to help our patients.  Before I walk in a patient's room, I have personally looked at every X-ray, scan, other diagnostic test done the day before. I have reviewed the chart. Read the Nurse's notes, Read any Consultations, gone over the progress notes, the vital signs sheet, all the lab reports. THEN I go into the patient's room.  

If I spend less time than the patient would like, I am an uncaring SOB.  We would not put in 18 hour days if we did not care.  

Answer 6

i agree with the first answers.

im going to school for nursing, and i deeply care for the health of people. i think alot of people are like that. compassionate.

it takes alot of work to be a doctor, and the rewards of helping someone are far greater than the salary .

its an amazing profession, but yeah pharmacists don't care. they're in it for the money all the way, they only give you medicine under a doctors order, they dont help you in any way.

Answer 7

Depends on the Doctor. But I think Most of them really do care. Especially their License is at stake if they don't...  

Answer 8

There is a difference between a pharmacist and the pharmaceutical companies. It takes hard work to be a pharmacist as well and the field of clinical pharmacy has many caring pharmacists. I don't understand the pharmacist-bashing one of the responders up above is dishing out. I think it is rude to insult ANY member of the health care team, be it nurses, doctors, or pharmacists, by saying they don't' care about the patient.

The big drug companies, the insurance companies, etc. really don't. They only care about profit and money which is very unfortunate. But there is truly no need to bash pharmacists as highlikeplanes did. That is uncalled for and unprofessional.  

Answer 9

Some are really hard to like, but we try.

Keep in mind that there's a selection process to get into medical school. We come from a background of being over-achievers in college. We could have made money more easily. Almost all of us go into medicine for altruistic reasons, and we generally try to keep it up even when it seems the world don't want us to do so.

Answer 10

Here in the UK, medicine isn't the booming business it is in the US. Mainly because our NHS isn't privatized. Which is great because instead of worrying about malpractice cases, we concentrate on the patient.

However, some in the US, I believe are concentrated with money, but that comes with the territory over there, health-care is big business, but I am certain that most doctors care very little about the business side of things.