Clinical Inequality

In Nelson’s article, she thoroughly explains that there is a set of clinical hierarchy that makes patient irrationality explainable to an extent. Her claim is that patients do not share the knowledge that physicians posses, but that does not always mean their knowledge is wrong. Nelson makes it clear that the things we know, and the things we understand in our world are all products of someone or something else. By patients making “irrational” decisions, it would seem judgemental and harsh for physicians to classify them in this manner, since their knowledge is what they know to their understanding. They trust what they’ve been told to be true, and because of that trust there is nothing to convince them that what they understand is false. She …show more content…
Recall a statement I made earlier in this essay. Which is; Physicians are people too. A doctor is someone who helps people, but doctors will need doctors, and their doctor’s doctor will need another doctor. Everyone needs some sort of healthcare that cannot come from him or her. So then the question becomes; what happens when the physician becomes the patient? Can their ten or more years of education help them make diagnoses on themselves? Most often this isn’t the case, because self-diagnosing can be a dangerous process, and a physician usually can’t walk into a practice that isn’t theirs and order things they need. Reason one; It would be unethical, and reason two; there’s a lot of governmental formalities that need to be addressed. So in the scenario that a doctor needs medical attention, the physician must go through the same process as everyone else. They wait in the waiting room, and talk to their physician when it is their turn. However, this is where clinical equality comes in. When a doctor visits another doctor, and says to the physician examining them “I think I might have an ulcer, I have symptoms of-” the technical jargon the physician would use to a member of their community would likely make the physician more comfortable, and open minded when speaking with their patient turned colleague. Suddenly, it seems as if the barrier between patient and doctor no longer exists, simply because two people come from the same hierarchy in the social system. There is another interesting article, which I feel could further reinforce my point of special treatment for “special” patients. When interviewed about faced with a situation similar to patients, 88% of doctors would chose the DNR. (Do not resuscitate) over being saved. On the other hand, they would choose the opposite for their patients (Mapes, 2014). According to Mapes, this reveals a