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November 10, 2009

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Letter: Ignorance fuels criticism of ‘greedy doctors’

Monday, June 10, 2002 | 9:02 a.m.

Please inform letter writer Raymond Harbert that his knowledge of the writings of Hippocrates is abysmal. Hippocrates does not teach to persist in medically futile treatment. It is our laws and lawyers that prevent physicians from making these decisions.

Mr. Harbert should direct his attention to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) that mandates treatment even when good medical judgment indicates otherwise. His efforts should be directed at altering the legal definition of death to encompass the vegetative state of his acquaintance.

He should acquaint himself with those court cases in which permission to "pull the plug" has been sought. I assure him the doctors are thinking of "the well-being, comfort and eventual serene passing" of his acquaintance. They also do not want to be charged with homicide.

But it is much easier, and certainly fashionable, to blame the "greedy doctors" for bleeding "the last dollar out of a failed system."

Well, this is one physician he doesn't have to worry about. I'm out of the system. I regret that I have two sons exposed to this level of malicious maligning.

S.M. DOUBRAVA

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