Linda Boyle: The art of medicine lost over time to cash-incentivized treatment

By LINDA BOYLE

Sir William Osler, the Father of Modern Medicine, said, “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.”   

Today’s healthcare delivery is based on “corporatization of medicine.”  For many doctors, the joy of medicine is lost. The doctor who succeeds is the one who sees “the relationship with their patients as an arm-length transaction,” more concerned about their private time than the patient’s comfort.   

Burnout among doctors is high, for those who seek to practice wholistically, with a true doctor-patient relationship.   

From my nursing perspective, the demise of medicine began under managed care where the insurance companies come between the patient and doctor. The bean counters decided on how much time a doctor needed to “treat’ a patient; what diagnostic codes led to higher reimbursements from insurance companies and Medicare; “best practice” protocols became mandated protocols; and pay for performance was based on how well you met the bean counter requirements.  

The art of medicine was lost. The patients being treated are on the losing end. The winners were the providers who followed all these requirements hook, line, and sinker. They were financially rewarded, sometimes at the individual patient’s expense.  

Enter the Covid years. Somehow, we moved from docking some performance pay if you didn’t meet mandated protocols to going after your medical licenses if you chose to offer different solutions than what the mainstream dictators required.    

Since the beginning of Covid, state medical boards have gone after those doctors who offered alternative Covid therapies that were not in step with the mainstream beliefs. This was especially true for the use of Ivermectin during the early stages of Covid.  

Oddly, state medical boards don’t like to interfere with the doctor’s right to prescribe off-label medicines to treat a disease. Instead, these boards went after whether the doctor used the proper records documenting what they did and why; or determining if they practiced telemedicine without being credentialed to do so. 

It’s fascinating to me that the boards would use the lack of proper documentation to suspend a physician’s license. In my career, I have seen major errors by doctors that did not lead to such a severe punishment.   

In a 2022 report, the Federation of State Medical Boards had harsh criticism of members’ pandemic treatment, citing the increase of “misinformation” on social media “has not been accompanied by any increase in accountability for those who disseminate the misinformation and disinformation.   The FSMB wanted more action taken by state boards against these doctors who did not tout the party line.

The Washington Post did a review of complaints against physicians for Covid misinformation. It received responses from 36 state medical boards. Of these responses, they identified 480 complaints involving “covid misinformation” and five doctors lost their licenses for this “egregious” action.  The article went on to state all these doctors had “other findings against them involving deficient treatment of patients.” The specifics of which were not identified.  

Washington State’s medical regulator has threatened disciplinary action for physicians’ stance on Covid treatment that was not within the mainstream allowable dialogue.  Three of four of these doctors were charged for prescribing Ivermectin “to patients with covid-19 without documenting an adequate rationale, as well as making false statements about coronavirus vaccines liable to discourage vaccination.”  The fourth doctor was a pediatrician who allegedly gave up her state license under duress from her employer. 

There are other states and medical certification boards still actively pursuing doctors who dance to a different drummer.  

Dr. Ryan Cole, who spoke at our Alaska Covid Alliance Conference several times, has been barred by the Washington State Medical Board for prescribing Ivermectin by telemedicine. But the board was were careful to say Cole could still do telemedicine to review pathology slides.

Dr. Meryl Nass, who also has spoken at our Alaska Covid Alliance Conference several times, is still fighting with the Maine Medical Board for suspending her license.  Her crime? Prescribing Ivermectin with insufficient documentation.   

Dr. Paul Marik and Dr. Pierre Kory,  two of the founders of Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), recently had board certifications revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) for leading an organization “that promotes Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.”  Additionally, these doctors are offering out-of-the-box solutions for treatment of spike protein injury.  

“Pierre Kory, MD, is no longer certified in critical care medicine, pulmonary disease, and internal medicine, according to the ABIM website. Paul Ellis Marik, MD, is no longer certified in critical care medicine or internal medicine. “ 

Dr. Nass was curious about this and checked the ABIM web page and discovered she, too, is no longer certified by the ABIM.  She was shocked. There was no notification. No due process. Nothing.

That sure as heck does not pass the smell test. Anyone who is losing something as valuable to their career as board certification should have been involved in the process. But that is the big boot of the government.

Take a short trip down memory lane with our good doctors in Alaska. You may remember after our first Covid-19 Conference in 2020, local physicians were infuriated about the “misinformation” being spread. These nearly 150 physicians signed a petition to the Alaska Medical Board wanting harsh action to be taken. Fortunately, our board did not buy this dribble. The board rightly refused to approve the complaint regarding “misinformation” by our courageous Alaskan doctors.