To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re:  Why doctors fail

Date: Friday 15 April 05

 

Guardian, 15 April 05: "Data on doctors examined to assess ability"

 

As the above article shows, there is much concern about removing incompetent doctors from the medical profession. However, we need to ask how it is that they get there in the first place; and it is not just incompetent doctors who present a problem for society, but incompetent members of every trade and profession.

 

The problem is systemic and fundamental to the existing socio-economic order, which is rooted in our "more animal than human " nature. A person's trade or profession represents their niche in the "socio-economic environment ", which they are under a great deal of financial and social pressure to hang on to, regardless of their suitability from the point of view of society as a whole.

 

When someone is not suited to the niche (trade, profession) they occupy it is tragic both for themselves and for society at large, but this is often the rule rather than the exception in existing society and an important reason why it is in such a sorry state. Politicians are mainly responsibility for getting us into this situation (although, not consciously, of course), which they then use to justify their own privileged niches, promising to get us out of the mess that they and their predecessors have been instrumental in creating. But they cannot possibly solve the underlying problems of which they are themselves an integral part (the same applies to large sections of the media, which lives from reporting and commenting on all the problems, which again it helps create).

 

Being good at one's job and appreciated for it is (or should be) a major source of human happiness and contentment. No one in their right mind (i.e. knowing their own enlightened self-interest) would want to live without it. The trouble is that few people recognise what their enlightened self-interests are, and that the economy, being rooted in our "more animal than human " nature, developed to satisfy not just our essential animal needs, but also our short-sighted animal desires, rather than our human needs (such as secure, diverse and spiritually satisfying work) and more enlightened desires (such as preserving Earth's natural resources and biodiversity for coming generations).


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