Why Doctors Won’t Talk About Panflu

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I’ve polled 4 family physician’s now. Two are my personal physicians, and two are doctors my elderly father is seeing. Three of the 4 know I’m a retired medic. One does not.

The results?

Two are extremely concerned (my doctors). They have both been very accommodating about Rx’s, one insisted on writing Tamiflu for me. I didn’t have to ask.

One of my Dad’s doc’s is moderately concerned, and wrote extra cardiac Rx’s for my Dad to `tide him over’ a pandemic. He also felt prepping for food shortages was `prudent’. He has relayed that opinion to other patients, as well.

And the fourth, an oncologist, dismissed it. He, btw, was the one doctor that was unaware of my medical background.

I suspect being a retired medic makes me a member of the `club’, and therefore doctors are more apt to talk openly to me. Fair? Hardly, but it does seem to be true. One of my doctors `spilled his guts’ about his concerns once I brought up H5N1. We talked at least 30 minutes. His father was a doctor in India in 1918, and he grew up hearing stories of the pandemic.

The incredulous oncologist battles cancer every day, and I suspect to him, anything that isn’t going to kill his patients today is relegated to the back burner. Sad, but sorta understandable.

Like any other cross section of society, doctors come in all flavors. Some are arrogant, some are not. Most are terribly overworked and overwhelmed. It is not easy being a doctor these days.

Back in the 1970′s we used to see a phenomenon called the Marcus Welby Syndrome’. For those that don’t remember, the 1970′s was a time when medical TV shows filled the airwaves. Medical Center, Emergency, and Marcus Welby, to name a few. Each week, we’d see patients come into the ER convinced they had whatever the `disease of the week’ on Marcus Welby was.

People are impressionable. And doctors, being aware of that, tend to dismiss the `disease of the week’. Some doctors, I fear, view Avian Flu as the disease of the week, and therefore resort to debunking it.

Shortsighted, I know. But there you go.

The good news is, more doctors are beginning to talk about this. Not nearly enough, and not openly enough, but I do see a shift in perception.

If you do have a chance to talk openly to a doctor, one who is following this, you see a dark look come over them. This is every doctor’s nightmare. They look at their staff and wonder if they can ask them to risk exposure, they look at their local hospitals and wonder how they will ever cope with the patients, they think of their families, and their patients, and know how little they can really do for them against H5N1.

The bottom line I believe is: More doctors are worried about this than will freely admit to it. They know they have very limited abilities to deal with it if it comes. And many have simply elected to `not worry’ their patients about something they believe cannot be controlled.

Wrongheaded? Yes, in my opinion it is. I’d much prefer open discussion. Real debate. And facing this threat head on. I just fear we are unlikely to see that until the monster is at the door.

(Note: I routinely correspond with a number of health care providers, including several physicians who take panflu very seriously. They are activists in this field. I have excluded them from this essay and have focused on regular doctors in private practice. )

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