A hero

The legendary surgeon Dr. Thomas E. Starzl is regarded by many as one of the fathers of transplantation. Dr. Starzl, who at 83 continues to practice medicine, shared his thoughts on health care reform, doctors and patients. Among the thoughts he shared:

I believe we need to restore trust of society in medicine…. When I was in medical school the level of public trust in medicine was higher than it is today, mainly because it was so non-commercial at the outset. Trust had eroded to some extent, and medicine became a venture capital business as the years went by.

I think there were other factors, too. The public was really not well informed about medicine way back then. There's been a tremendous upgrade of public information. Many of the patients now know almost as much and sometimes even more than the people caring for them.--The New York Times