Medical experts also misjudged the difficulty doctors would have in diagnosing inhalation anthrax, assuming that a sophisticated surveillance system was needed to detect an attack.
Re "At Bedside, Stay Stoic or Display Emotions?" (Essay, April 22): Dr. Barron H. Lerner writes that health professionals now "debate among themselves the propriety of emotional displays" with patients and describes the difficulty doctors face in differentiating their patients who would appreciate "physical contact or tears" from those who would not.
A particularly poignant admission was the difficulty doctors and nurses sometimes have working together.
It has therefore been suggested that individuals are less likely to accept at face value what is being recommended by their doctor, creating difficulties for doctors, who are not used to having their professional judgment and integrity challenged [ 2].
There has been an increase in competition in the private sector and this has created difficulties for doctors seeking to establish private practice: "The problem is there are many doctors and nobody regulates the entrance of more doctors" (Gynaecologist #6, private clinic).
The main difficulties village doctors encountered in TB work were a lack of government funding for TB control tasks (28 doctors, 32.9%), inconvenient traffic and distances in mountain areas (19 doctors, 22.4%), low treatment adherence of patients (10 doctors, 11.8%) low education level of patients (6 doctors, 7.1%), and high workload (5 doctors, 5.9%).
These difficulties for doctors and patients raise questions about the ethical integrity of the informed consent process.
I don't mean to make light of the newly created ethical difficulties facing doctors, paramedics, bishops and legislators.
There are concerns about the difficulties recruiting doctors, as well as the outflow from the profession and people leaving to pursue careers abroad.
