What's the Problem?.

Abstract

We physicians get so focused, so specialized, we become organ doctors not people doctors. We deal with the disease the patient has rather than the patient who happens to have a disease. This is true for any illness and I suspect for the majority of specialists--though I believe family doctors and pediatricians are more aware of the social implications of a disease than we cardiac surgeons who have had ninety years of training and can only do our work in a hospital surrounded by a staff of fourteen and equipment that monitors everything including fingernail growth.