Customer Reviews

The Rape of Emergency Medicine

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4 star:		(1)
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Dr. Phoenix clearly speaks from experience! His parody of the real movers and shakers in the "business" of staffing America's ER's with good, great, (and sometimes frighteningly horrible!) doctors is funny, creative, and right on target.

As a former emergency physician, I too have encountered all the creatures in "Rape"'s odd menagerie. The book's diagnosis of the ills present in our emergency healthcare system is, unfortunately, deadly accurate. This tragic, comic adventure should be required reading for anyone who works in medicine, has been, or ever will be in a hospital emergency room.

This book is amusing, horrifying, and entertaining. Anyone planning a residency or job in emergency medicine needs to read it. While one gets the impression that the happenings of this book are a bit exaggerated--maybe they're not. Reaction of "pit docs" against large contract-management groups was in large part responsible for the formation of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine--and the abuses of contract-management groups against the "pit docs" are chronicled in this seminal book. Originally published anonymously to protect the author, this book describes working in an ED the way it used to be years ago.

Though things have improved a bit over the years, there is still a widespread feeling that "ER staffing companies" rip off the docs and abuse them on a regular basis, hire incompetents to fill the slots in the schedule, and generally try to run the company to mazimize the bottom line, and their profits, no matter who gets hurt. True, there are some large groups (e.g., EMP) which have a good reputation--but most do not. Most ER docs would rather work for a small, independent group (becoming an endangered species) but end up having to work for a large group.

As a long-time academic emergency physician, every year I am asked about different groups by EM residents who are going to start interviewing for jobs. My first question is "have you read The Rape of Emergency Medicine?"

Fantastic story of how Emergency Medicine Physicians were (and still are?) held hostage by people that are anything but MD' (despite going to medical school and barely passing). A must read for all those going into Emergency Medicine, especially interns.