Foreign Doctors and Quacks; Not Necessarily Identical

There's a little good and a little bad, and sometimes a lot bad.

"For every bit of good news there has to be a corresponding piece of bad." Possibly attributable to Joe Btfsplk, a character in Al Capp's "Li'l Abner." Joe always had a cloud over him as he meandered around Dogpatch.

Here's item number one:

Physicians trained in other countries have been able to find work in the US pending approval of their applications for status as properly documented aliens. Most of these people have no intention of ever returning to their doctor-impoverished homelands, applying for US citizenship ASAP. Considering the disparity in incomes between providers in the US and those in, say, Pakistan, the desire to remain here is obvious. It's a no-brainer, in the language of the average American youngster.

A lot of these foreign trained doctors find ready employment in the US, filling positions considered undesirable by most graduates of our country's medical schools. Among these are staff positions in State run mental hospitals, VA hospitals, and the US Public Health Service. There are also "warm body" positions available in small communities to which US trained physicians aren't likely gravitate. In these small towns, anything is better than nothing.

Most foreign trained providers are well trained. Many of them can even speak excellent English. Unfortunately, many of them can't converse well in our language, thus negating the benefits of good communication in medical care.

After 9/11 and the attention logically directed at aliens living here who might have some type of nefarious intent, many of these doctors are facing deportation. Their departure will leave some holes in our healthcare system, in precisely the places which have needed them the most.

So, the good news: Foreign trained doctors are providing a lot of healthcare in our country, most of it good quality. And the bad: If we deport a bunch of them, people in the greatest need will suffer the most. It appears that Joe Btfsplk had it right. There's always a cloud somewhere, just itching for the chance to rain on somebody with no umbrella.

And in the second place:

"The more things change the more they remain the same." In pioneer America, it was the traveling medicine show, with a fancy guy selling snake-oil as a cure-all. He was the poster-boy for 19th century alternative medicine, and his product name remains one of the buzz phrases used to describe worthless treatment.

Patients are defying the fact of their (presumed) 21st century enlightenment by buying snake-oil at ever increasing rates. Various hare-brained schemes to extract money from victims continue to be successful for their promoters. Current providers of this service are now able to sneak around beneath the radar of our scrutiny by calling themselves "alternative practitioners." Should azcountrydoc.com last that long, this column will be repeated appropriately in the next century!

Snake-oil has always sold well in the beauty and sexual enhancement arenas, as well as in those areas where "regular" medicine has been unable to bring about true cures. This includes treatment of chronic pain, arthritis, and cancer. In the former situation, buyers get what they deserve, and probably don't really expect much anyway. In the latter circumstances, desperate people are taken to the cleaners by full blown, dyed-in-the-wool quacks, for whom the appropriate penalty would be one of Yo'Doc's favorites. (It's his behavior modification remedy, known as the "four point stake-out on an ant hill after basting in honey-mustard dressing.")

Dr. Stephen Barret has made a career of exposing and jousting with medical quacks. His web page, Quackwatch, has a whole lot of information that can useful to any skeptics out there. The url is www.quackwatch.com. but you can get to the site easily by going to our Links page and clicking on Quackwatch.