I ran across this in my Facebook feed, posted and LIKED  by a few of my friends in medicine:

Dear Mr. President: 
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone. 

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as “Medicaid”! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman’s health care? I contend that our nation’s “health care crisis” is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a “crisis of culture” a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that “I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me”. Once you fix this “culture crisis” that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you’ll be amazed at how quickly our nation’s health care difficulties will disappear. 

Respectfully, 
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD

This is at best, classism and at worst, racism. A “culture crisis”? Really? Would it be called a “culture crisis” if the person had on a BUSINESS SUIT and played a Country music ringtone? 

A doctor above everyone else should not judge based on appearances. What gives him the right to determine who is eligible for medicaid based on appearances? This is obviously the portrayal of an urban poor patient who loves cigarettes, beer, God forbid R&B. 

I have news for anyone thinking of going into the medical field especially aspiring doctors:

IF YOU ARE GOING INTO IT FOR THE MONEY- DON’T. 

It is not the 1980’s, you will never make that famed kind of money doctors were making then. 

What gives me the right to vent about this stuff?? Well I am $145,000 in debt from medical school. Will I be able to pay this back… maybe. But, it will take YEARS. I know this, I understand this. I did not go into medicine to be a millionaire. I want to be able to pay off my loans and live comfortably. Most of all I want to help people, make a difference. 

Dr. Jones I think you forgot your oath, sir. 

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

(taken from the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath)

Is this what medicine has become? Are you going to treat a patient differently based on her appearance? ability to pay? type of health care?

(Source: snopes.com)