Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon
“The decline of vocation did not happen overnight. It was gradual, almost imperceptible at first, like a slow leak in the hull of a ship. Administrators multiplied until they outnumbered physicians. Insurance companies dictated what treatments were permissible, not based on medical judgment but on actuarial tables. Pharmaceutical firms turned research into marketing, blurring the line between scientific discovery and sales strategy. Hospitals transformed into corporations with CEOs, branding departments, and profit margins to defend. The physician’s desk became a computer terminal, and the patient was no longer a soul in need of healing but a data point to be coded and billed. Even the language betrayed the transformation: patients became ‘units of care,’ outcomes became ‘deliverables,’ and clinical judgment was rebranded as ‘adherence to protocol.’ This hollowing out of medicine’s soul reached its most devastating climax during Covid.” (10/05/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-lost-vocation-of-medicine-from-calling-to-commodity/