Should American doctors be allowed to work in Haiti?

[nancylebov]

Just heard on NPR, in the course of a story about how stoical and grateful Haitians getting emergency medical help are..... a doctor says she's not going to be patient with Americans who complain at getting a second needle stick. [Getting care in America] is like being in a four-star hotel with champagne.

Even supposing that Haitians have a superior reaction (stoicism is useful in some ways, but pain is frequently a signal that something is going wrong) it isn't reasonable to expect people to reliably have an emotional reaction which isn't supported by their culture.

Also, we will note that the doctor wants her patients to accept more pain so that she doesn't have to deal with the inconvenience of being told about what they're feeling. Complaining about complaining is still....complaining.

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

They could also be in shock, for heaven's sake. "Wow, it's great to work with people who are too traumatized to complain when I hurt them physically."

[avram]

Yeah, this.

[inquisitiveravn.livejournal.com]

Heck, that's one of the Murphy's laws of EMS. The amount of complaining is inversely proportional to the severity of the injury.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Complaining about complaining is still....complaining.

Well said. "I want everyone to be stoical except for me." Learning to put up with annoying people is a basic part of Stoic training, as anyone who'd read Seneca or Marcus Aurelius would know. And on a scale of annoying people, people who complain about having needles stuck in them come pretty low.

[sethg]

Dear Whiny Doctor: If you like treating Haitians so much, perhaps you should continue doing it in Haiti after the current crisis has passed, and enjoy the same salary (i.e., nil) and working conditions (i.e., crap) that doctors in Haiti have had to put up with all along.

When I was in EMT training, I stuck a pregnant lady

[(Anonymous)]

in the wrong place, had to redo at least twice. She was really patient. I really appreciated it.

Bruce