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Let us now pause to ponder the death of Ross Weirick, who put Salida on KUSA's news broadcasts last week.
Weirick, 66, was a retired railroad man. Last Monday morning, he went to the doctor's office with chest pains and breathing difficulties. He had no appointment, but several times told the receptionist that he was in pain.
After about 25 minutes, he suffered a heart attack before the doctor could see him. Someone called KUSA, a helicopter was dispatched, and Salida made the Denver news.
Far more interesting, though, has been the coverage in the local newspaper, the Mountain Mail. The Mail first told its readers that the newspaper was working steadfastly to determine who called Channel 9. Later, the newspaper informed us that the station's helicopter had landed at a certain ranch.
Great journalism, right? In other parts of the country,
reporters go to jail to protect their sources, and their
newspapers support them. Here, the newspaper tries to
expose a news source. The focus of its coverage was
Let's find out who ratted on Salida.
Just think how
Watergate might have turned out -- every other news
organization would be investigating Nixon and CREEP, while
the Mail tried to identify Deep Throat.
The Mail somehow believed that Salida had been embarrassed by the KUSA story, which wasn't the case; if there is any reason to blush, it is that you live in a town where the local press indulges in such whining bush-league boosterism.
Lest you think that petty journalism is merely a Salida problem, keep in mind that the editor here is so respected by his peers -- the who people run other newspapers in Colorado -- that he is also the president of the Colorado Press Association, the highest office the Fourth Estate of this state can bestow.
The sad fact is that it did happen here -- a man dying
while waiting to see the doctor -- but it could have
happened anywhere. Weirick didn't have an appointment, but
I doubt that made any difference. No matter where I've
lived, if you've scheduled a 15-minute appointment for 9
a.m., you're lucky if you waste only a morning. Sometimes
it's well after noon before the receptionist calls your
name and says the doctor will see you now.
Which is another fiction, because the doctor does not
see you now.
What that really means is that you go
from the reception room, which is at least fairly
comfortable, into a tiny and uncomfortable chamber where
you can wait a while longer for the doctor to appear.
Why do physicians make us wait so long? Granted, there are emergencies, but emergencies don't happen every day, and tedious waits are daily routine.
A cynic might suggest it's good for business. The longer that you sit in a room full of other sick people, the greater your chances of contracting more diseases, and the sicker you get, the more the doctor makes.
But I suspect that doctors waste our time simply because they can get away with it. They have a legal monopoly, and so we have no choice but to put up with their arrogant inefficiency.
If there were more doctors, and they did not hold such an exalted position of money and power, then they'd keep appointments. The future looks promising.
My wife, Martha, discovered that. Any profession
dominated by women,
she notes, has no prestige and
pays rotten wages. If most doctors were women, they'd be
driving Fords instead of Porsches, and a doctor wouldn't be
any big deal. Look at Russia, where most doctors are women.
The job doesn't pay well and carries less status than a
truck driver.
America is headed that way; in 1960, only 8.4 percent of the medical school graduates were women, and in 1986, 30.8 percent. In about 20 years, doctors will no longer be wealthy men whose whim is law, and appointments will actually mean something.
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