POEM
Valedictory
BY CLARK WATTS, MD, JD I
Half a hundred years ago we stood with pride and took an oath. No talk of managed care or tort reform; just who we were and of our calling. We sought worlds wherein our skills could cure or palliate and, when not, bring calm to those who suffered. Having heard: Ask what you can do … we set forth with boldness shrouding naiveté and the blessings of our mentors, to tend to those in need.
II
A cry of grief in the dead of night, the time when urgent is the norm; for us a challenge to accept for that is why we took the oath. The enigmatic that perplexed we knew with time would yield to our persistence and to our treasured anodynes. So in their longing for that we knew they called for us, and in the glow of their respect we basked and dreamed. Yes, dreamed of worlds that did not need that which we knew.
III
In time, the glow began to dim, and darkness came into our worlds. For painful conflicts slipped between the duties of our calling, and the needs of us and ours. Along the way came funerals; solemn tributes to our limits. Such is life, and its end, we said, as we turned to reaffirm our oath.
V From where originates these troubled times,
this cloud of wrathful doubt that drifts twixt
us and those who seek our care? we asked.
When time revealed to us those nexus of disquiet we took our leave to seek and view again the oath. But did we do that which we knew to do, or did we yield to those who said: we know because we pay? They also said those privileges and practices arising from the oath are not for now, and that our treatment plans must yield to those who know nothing of our ways except to calculate the costs.
VI
Now, at dusk, as we prepare at last to close our doors, in the lengthening shadows of those claims
56 TEXAS MEDICINE June 2014
IV We began to question that we saw within ourselves;
for some, position trumped collegiality, and status, professional norms, while peer review devolved from tool to truncheon.
Then came those who did not know that which
we knew or did, but with the power of the purse rejected that we offered. And patients became confused, distraught,
infirmed by fright and anger.
we ask ourselves: Of our dreams what did we gain; is now
no better than before we took the oath?
The answers must come from each who toiled and struggled in search of better ways. For now as we review our days beyond the oath, and draw comfort from the good we know we did,
is that enough we ask to ease the pain as we confront that which we should have done, or that we should have not And what now of the oath? n
Clark Watts, MD, JD, is a retired neurosurgeon who lives in Georgetown.
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