Ed Note: The article below rang true to me. Our hospitals are where we are cared for by strangers in that our family physician seldom, if ever, visits. If we are readmitted, there’s a second group of strangers. None know who we really are. The “discharge planner” gets involved from day one, looking to move us through the industrial care as quickly as possible (hospitals are now reimbursed by diagnosis, not by days of care). Although the article is titled “Doctors Revolt” there should be a message there for all of us.

From the NYT: “Boston — The 96-year-old patient with pneumonia in Bed 11 was angry. “Do you really need to check my vital signs every four hours?” he asked.

Checking things like temperature, blood pressure and respiratory rate every four hours on hospitalized patients has been the standard of care since the 1890s, yet scant data indicates that it helps. In fact, data shows that close to half of patients are unnecessarily awakened for such checks, perhaps to the detriment of their recovery. My patient wanted to know how, with all that poking and prodding, he was supposed to rest and get better.

“I understand your frustration,” I replied, “and wish I could help to change the situation.”

I may have been a lowly intern, but it was a feeble reply. And he knew it. “Understanding is not enough,” he said. “You should be doing something to help fix this system.”

The hospital, he lamented, is more like a factory — “it tests every ache and treats every laboratory abnormality, but it does little to heal its patients.” Treating and healing are both necessary, but modern health care too often disregards the latter.

Few understand this better than the patient in Bed 11. He turned out to be Bernard Lown, emeritus professor of cardiology at Harvard, a senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and the founder of the Lown Cardiovascular Group. He is celebrated for pioneering the use of the direct-current defibrillator for cardiac resuscitation and an implant called the cardioverter for correcting errant heart rhythms. He also co-founded the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and helped to educate millions on the medical consequences of nuclear war.