Sick and Systemic: Absurd Scenes from a Medical System That Works—Just Not for You (Volume 6)

The system is working exactly as designed. That may be the problem. In the sixth volume of Sick and Systemic: Absurd Scenes from a Medical System That Works-Just Not for You, obtaining informed consent becomes a threat to sales. Medical debt is rebranded as "compassionate recovery." Regulators are urged to approve promising treatments before their effectiveness is known. Political power enters the examination room. A complex human life is labeled "treatment-resistant." Two marriage-support chatbots help a couple communicate so effectively that they nearly stop speaking altogether. Across eleven sharp, darkly funny scenes, physician and storyteller Arthur Lazarus exposes a medical culture fluent in empathy, transparency, innovation, and patient-centered care-as long as those ideals do not interfere with revenue, workflow, liability, ideology, or branding. The people in these stories are not necessarily cruel or incompetent. Many are intelligent and sincere, trying to help. That is what makes the absurdity so unsettling. The medical forms are completed. The dashboards glow green. The meetings are productive. The patient is still waiting to be seen. For physicians, patients, healthcare leaders, and anyone who has ever wondered how a system of smart people can behave so foolishly, Sick and Systemic, Volume 6 is satire with a clinical pulse-and a warning beneath the laughter.