Another sort of medical hero

In a news clip about how U.S. doctors and nurses are having compensation cut by hospitals whose business model depends on procedures currently cancelled or postponed because of COVID-19, an aghast British Broadcasting gave Dr. Jane Jenab the last word.

"It's criminal that these people are having their hours and their pay slashed at a time when they are risking their lives, when it's the most dangerous time of our careers to be coming in to work every day and when really they should be receiving something like hazard pay," says Dr Jane Jenab.

Dr Jenab is a physician in emergency medicine in Denver, Colorado. To her, the problem has become clear.

"One of the biggest issues in US medicine today is that it has become a business. In the past, that was not the case," says Dr Jenab.

"They tend to run very lean with these hospitals, with these large corporate medical groups because honestly they are much more concerned about profit than their patients," she says, clearly impassioned.

Dr Jenab says she feels the abrupt loss of income suffered by medical staff is just one systemic problem in US private healthcare that has been thrown into sharp relief by the coronavirus crisis.

"One of the primary conversations that we're having at the moment [as doctors in the US] is when this is all over, how do we make real and lasting change for our profession?" she says.

"It's hard not to realize how drastically we need to return the focus of medicine away from business and back to caring for our patients."

She's right, of course. It takes guts to speak out against the system that provides your livelihood. She's got guts.

Jane is one of my longtime comrades on the Clydesdale Virtual Racing [Running, Jogging, Stumbling] Team. We've been doing this virtual thing, sharing our joys and struggles, for decades. So proud to know her.