Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary

by Timothy Snyder

The problem is not that doctors do not want to work with patients. As we see during the coronavirus pandemic, physicians can work extraordinarily hard and risk their own lives trying to save the lives of others. The problem is that doctors have very little say in what happens around them, and waste their time and energy pacifying greater powers. They no longer have the authority that patients expect and need. Every day, physicians have to pretend to patients that they matter more than they do. If patients understood how enserfed doctors have become, they would be less likely to come to hospitals, and less money would be made. American doctors are becoming props in advertisements, the front men and women whose coached smiles are meant to cover the gaps in our ragged patchwork of competing hospitals.