The three paradoxes of private medicine: Private medicine stinks

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7471.919-a

BMJ 2004;329:919 (16 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7471.919-a

Letter

The three paradoxes of private medicine

Private medicine stinks

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Longley is a man after my own heart. His personalview on private medicine is gloriously disputatious, and hehas it bang to rights.¹ I received an unctuous letter on embossedpaper recently that declared "What a pleasure it was to meetyour charming patient Mrs X... I think she has Y, but for thesake of completeness, I have ordered a number of (expensive)tests and will see her shortly with the results. In the meantimeI suggest she takes Zamzam XL and Zipzip MR."

I see Mrs X a couple of days later as an emergency because Zamzamand Zipzip are too expensive for her to buy privately and wouldI please prescribe same instead (non-generically of course)?I feel angry and manipulated.

Two weeks later the second letter arrived. It's been a triumphfor Zamzam, and the impoverished Mrs X is now to be slotted. . . [Full text of this article]

James N Hardy, general practitioner principal

Bethnal Green Health Centre, London E2 6LL james.hardy@nhs.net