“Privacy and Professionalism

Marshall McLuhan:”The medium is the message”.
Professional recommendations today are eerily militaristic and reminiscent of the 1950’s.  Autocracy prevails.  Autonomy and freedom are gone.  The doctor must apply the ‘strictest privacy settings to maintain control over access to your personal information.”
When the war began even Freud said, “maybe the paranoids are right’.  War and rumours of war. The gearing up begins.    Relationships ,once membranous and authentic, are now rigid,  codified, Sadducean.   The less fluidity, the better.  “A crossing may be a violation.”
The senior government  beurocrat told me days past, “the patient is the enemy’.  The leading doctor, ex military, not that many years ago, taught, ‘doctors are officers, don’t fraternize with the enlisted.”  On graduation I was taught the only friends I could have were other doctors, lawyers or accountants. Even engineers were suspect.  In the government cafeteria ,like the police, the doctors sat apart.  As a specialist I sat alone. The divide was never greater. The boundaries celebrated,  Moats and walls.  Paul Simon sang “A.Winter’s Day”.
The department head told women and men to take off our wedding rings and remove pictures of children from the offices.  “Here you are only a doctor and you will never share anything about yourself with the patients. Not what you ate for lunch. Not where you live. Not what sports you play. Not what shows you have seen.  Nothing. Everything about yourself must be kept in the strictest of privacy. If I am getting on an elevator and a patient gets on that elevator I will get off even if there are other people on that elevator. Do you understand?”
Today we are told we are always doctors, in and out of the office and hospital, 24/7, weekends and holidays. "You are always a doctor".
The young hospital administrator last year coming into work accosted my colleague after she had delivered a baby in the wee hours of the morning. “Your skirt length should be below your knees.”  He said. “You shouldn’t be looking at my legs,” she replied hurrying sleepless, on to the clinic.  The administrator took out a black book,  made a note and recorded the name.
Today the patient is told, the ‘doctor is the enemy’.  The government demands doctors  have chaperones. The elite doctors alone practice with a lawyer alongside always. Poor doctors are advised to have their lawyers on speed dial.
Growing numbers of doctors would disband professions.  The Government lumps doctors with all the other “unionized’  calling them   ‘health care workers’.  The doctor is the proletariat to the new beurgeosie elites.  The Chinese emperor prided himself on his long finger nails, evidence that he did no manual labour.  The doctor who actually touches a patient is sordid, sharing the stigmatization of themselves of the diseased.  Priviledged land owners and money changers are above all that.
A good professional is seen but not heard.  They are a ‘tool’ and no more.  Their opinion should not be heard but read. Their feelings, families and ideas have no place in the protocols dictated from on high.  Efficient machines must have interchangeable parts especially in war where there is no time for delicacy or individuality.
The discussion of uniforms has returned.  War and rumours of war. The elite are anxious to move forward.  My colleague is questioned for wearing ‘shorts’ in the workplace. Sandals and long hair must go.
I’ve made an appointment at the barber.  When the war broke out even Freud said, “Maybe the paranoids are right.” War and rumours of war.