Hey remember when the governor of New Found Land went to the U.S. for heart surgery? I guess he didn't care about his health, huh?
Greensboro, NC-based Steven Feldman, MD, PhD, Professor of Dermatology, Pathology and Public Health Sciences at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and founder of Dr.Score.com , a web site where patients rate their doctors, said: Dead last? I'd like to respectfully disagree with that. While there is certainly a big problem with care for the uninsured in the US, once you get to see a doctor there's no better place in the world to be. Patients largely love their doctors. According to Dr.Score.com , nearly all patients give their doctors ratings of 9 out of a possible 10. Otolaryngologists, in particular, were among the highest rated specialties.
Gerard Gianoli, MD, of Baton Rouge, LA, an ENToday board member, said that Mirror Mirror is largely based on myths, and that if one compares costs of a procedure by country there's not a lot of difference. As for access to health care, he considers the United States superior: Everyone in the US who needs a cochlear implant gets one. Even if you're uninsured, Medicaid or someone else will get it done. Recently a Canadian colleague told Dr. Gianoli that cochlear implants are limited there, that his 2008 surgery schedule is filled, and that Canadians who don't want to wait cross the border for surgery Summing up, Dr. Gianoli compared socialized medicine to oil change insurance-when dollars go to routine procedures, there's little left for big-ticket items.
