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Nightmare medicine: The feds come between you and your doctor At dinner time on the last Friday in March, I parked next to an ambulance on the courthouse square in Newnan with my 7-year-old daughter, Kristen, in the back seat. This would be her first trip to Golden’s Cafeteria, soon to be a favorite since she loves pick-your-food restaurants that give a kid the power to choose. I had no idea I would soon need that ambulance crew. As I opened the back door for Kristen, my heart was smashed to the size of a pea in a split second. Her eyes were locked left in a minor seizure that I knew well, she was unresponsive and I hurried to the ambulance to ask for help. The crew put down their sandwich and dashed to check Kristen’s vital signs, prepared to give her oxygen if needed. After a moment, before she could control her eyes, Kristen could squeeze my finger when I asked, a good sign. The EMTs stopped traffic for me and I drove quickly to a fast food joint while Kristen came around, so I could give her the evening dose of anti-seizure pills I was carrying, with some Coke and the chicken nuggets she likes. I promised to take her back to Golden’s another time, and she slept her post-seizure slumber while I drove her home. It started last June while my wife Julie was out of town and I drove the kids to Pensacola, Fla., to visit Grandma. At a stop in Pensacola I felt my heart crushed into a pea for the first time when I found Kristen unresponsive with a blank stare. Within five minutes I had her in an emergency exam room at Sacred Heart Hospital nearby. They immediately diagnosed seizure and applied meds. In the space of an hour they asked my approval and completed an EEG and CAT scan. Kristen was admitted, Julie flew in from Philadelphia and the seizures continued through the next day. We were fortunate to have Dr. Renfroe, the top pediatric neurologist in this regional teaching hospital. He advised an MRI, we approved and he had the results that afternoon. Dr. Renfroe asked permission to admit Kristen to Intensive Care, where he could sedate her and apply stronger anti-seizure meds while hooking her up to a continuous EEG to record and analyze her brain activity. We said, “Do it NOW!” and she was transferred immediately. Imagine sitting by your unconscious child’s bedside, switching off with your spouse to cover 24-7, not knowing the outcome, with breathing and feeding tubes, wires and monitors hooked up to the little dear recording data while the clock ticks and tocks ever so slowly. While we waited, I was searching for the top pediatric neurologists in the Atlanta area because we needed to bring our family home to Peachtree City. After analyzing the results of spinal taps, Dr. Renfroe diagnosed viral encephalitis, an inflammation and swelling of the brain, possibly caused by mosquito bite. We had to wait for the infection to subside, then expect a year-long treatment to suppress seizures. After two weeks, Kristen improved enough to travel. I planned to take her to Children’s Hospital at Scottish Rite in north Atlanta, where a distinguished group of pediatric neurologists practice, including Dr. Philbrook, but they were so busy there was a waiting list. Dr. Renfroe picked up the phone and opened the door for Kristen. Julie and Kristen flew by air ambulance while I drove back to Atlanta, and Dr. Philbrook began treating Kristen in Children’s Hospital. There were more tests — MRI again, echocardiogram, etc. — and each time we said yes because if insurance didn’t cover it, then we would find a way to pay for it. After a week of progress, Kristen came home. Despite small setbacks, she is eating up life in big bites. I told you all of that to tell you this; I’m very worried about Washington taking over our health care system. It doesn’t take much research on other countries with socialized medicine to find a system where bureaucrats with procedure manuals choose your doctor for you and impose treatment limits on doctors and patients, where diagnostics like MRIs must first be approved and have waiting lists months long, where doctors become government employees. I shudder to think about last summer if I had to deal with a government-run system at each decision point. But there is something just as frightening on the physician’s side. What motivates people like Dr. Renfroe and Dr. Philbrook to spend many years in college at great expense to become a doctor, then work their guts out 80 to 100 hours a week for years to establish themselves and become a leader in their field? Public service, high achievement, the ability to treat patients without interference and, eventually, financial reward would be my guess. But we are already driving doctors out of the business with a growing burden of regulation and paperwork and the daily threat of litigation. How many of them will stay in the business, much less thrive and excel, on a government salary, under the direction of government employees wielding a 20-pound procedure manual? Our federal and state government already controls half of America’s health care spending through Medicare, Medicaid and other programs. Do we really want to turn over the remains of our private health care system to a dysfunctional crowd in Washington that couldn’t lead a group of little old ladies through a pansy patch without serious consequences? Some think we’re about to shoot ourselves in the foot with more government control in health care. I say we’re about to blow off both feet. [Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City. His email is tgarlock@mindspring.com.] login to post comments | Terry Garlock's blog
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