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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I remember my grandfather’s descriptions of WWII in the pacific. One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”.

The other was a Navy doctor. An officer, but really because he was a doctor.

Their experiences were wildly different. Not so much about risk but the Marine was a grunt and his description oozed what it meant to be at that level of rank. The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.

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> One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”.

My grandfather landed at Tarawa. He only talked about privately, it to family members that were in the service.

> The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.

From my experience, military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by the service (unlike most military jobs, where it's assumed that you know little to nothing of the job), the direct commissioning training is mostly so they can function and fit in that environment.

Yeah the Marine talked openly about it maybe a handful of times with me, I got the feeling he left a lot out, even then they were never happy stories. I got the feeling he carried his experiences like a weight his entire life and he didn't ever describe it in any good terms, none of it. Didn't help that he lost his brother (also a Marine).

I think it’d be fairly odd to describe any experience in which you have actual combat experience in a positive light.

At least, my experiences talking with a combat medic and the weather corps couldn’t be more different.

My great uncle was a Naval supply officer in WWII, and wrote a bunch of letters to my grandmother. He never left the ship during battles, so he couldn't have had as intense a combat experience as others. But he describes his time at the battle of Iwo Jima, killing Japanese soldiers who were swimming at the ship with explosives, and watching people die as Japanese fighters strafed the decks. What was interesting to me is that he doesn't particularly characterize it in a positive or negative light, but mostly just as completely surreal. He several times says he felt like he was in a movie. Unfortunately, he died before I was born and he never wrote anything after the war was over about his war experience. So I don't know how the reflection of time effected his thoughts on it.

> military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by the service

Sure, most of them join either during med school or during residency, with Uncle Sam picking up the financial obligations.

Funny story - good friend was an army doc and we managed to both get time off at the same time/location. Hanging out along the ocean and come across a little kid that got hurt. So he goes into doctor mode and talks soothingly to the kid, who is very apprehensive. He says “I know you’re not so sure I’m a doctor. It’s because I haven’t asked your parents for their insurance info yet” and smiles at the mom and dad.

Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is one of the perks of being a doctor in the military.

> Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is one of the perks of being a doctor in the military.

Despite not being anything close to an MD, a social media app I use has determined that I am. I get recruiting ads from the Navy that says this, in effect: "Don't worry about malpractice or insurance, just your patient". It's a pretty good sales pitch, I imagine.

> "Don't worry about malpractice or insurance, just your patient". It's a pretty good sales pitch, I imagine.

If only the rest of government aspired to that. :)

They kind of do, only their sales pitch is

> don’t worry about your constituents nor breaking the law, just your own self interest.

It really is about time politicians were locked up for their equivalent of malpractices.

And here I am thinking the threat of malpractice, and malpractice insurance costs, are part of the reason healthcare is so expensive in the USA

What happens in other countries when the doctor amputates the wrong leg or operates on the wrong patient? Does the government pay damages arising from malpractice?

In short: in some, yes. In my country, one's private insurance company may pay damages for injuries caused by medical malpractice. This may be included in the home insurance or some health/injury/accident insurance. Otherwise and in addition, you are covered by the provider's malpractice insurance. Private medical providers must have malpractice insurance. There is also a national scheme, regulated by law, that covers all public providers, which in practice would be all the emergency departments etc.

They are. Those $10M+ lawsuit verdicts get paid one way or another, and everyone is doing unnecessary cover your ass work to be able to not be in the line of fire for that lawsuit.

It's a small fraction: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3048809/#:~:text=Ov...

The bigger reason is profit-minded middlemen taking advantage of inelastic demand to jack up prices, a problem that does not exist in other countries.

It actually seems like an interesting bit of phrasing.

I think the ad, and you, are talking about malpractice insurance and other documentation to prove that you didn’t do malpractice.

The comment you replied to is actually taking about the underlying act of malpractice.

The first line of defenses against actual malpractice is that professionals are supposed to have some self-respect and standards. But of course our society is structured against professionalism. The insurance company or hospital admin doesn’t care if you are a real professional who does the right things when nobody is looking, that’s too hard quantify.

The ad is offering the opportunity to be a professional.

I think that would lead to even less civilized relationships between politicians and parties. Politicians throwing their rivals into courts and prison is not usually an aspect of a healthy civil society.

Politicians being above the law is not an aspect of a healthy civil society.

Throwing politicians into courts and prison after due legal process for crimes they actually commit is an aspect of a healthy civil society.

If your judicial system is so corrupt that every accusation against a politician is a ruse manufactured by their enemies and no fair trial is possible, then you don't have a healthy civil society either way.

The status quo is clearly demonstrating that accountability is desperately needed.

In my corner of the DoD, we absolutely aspire to work like that.

It's beyond frustrating to have politicians use us as rhetorical punching bags. The stereotypes they espouse about civil servants are largely inaccurate. I say this from having worked decades inside the DoD an in non-defense private sector.

Amen, similar experience here. There are parts of the US federal government that aspire to and excel in the way you have described.

Of course the opposite is true too. But it bothers me that much of the discourse on both sides tend to ignore the high functioning projects and sectors. It’s a cool professional experience to take part in.

Agreed. I was unclear, but I meant to refer to government policies around healthcare (especially insurance companies), not about civil servants.

Have you considered med school? Maybe the advertising platform knows something about you that you’re not aware of yourself.

I guess that rank is invisible to military doctors the same way that money is to rich people or positive attention is to good looking people.

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