As-Yet-Unnamed Disease Afflicting Doctors

As-Yet-Unnamed Disease Thought to Afflict One Third of All American Doctors 

There are reports of an as-yet-unnamed disease thought to afflict approximately one third of US physicians. It has been documented in up to 90% of surgeons and OBGYN’s, as well as 75% of ER doctors and radiologists. There have been case reports about this disease for over a century. However, thus far there has been little research into its clinical course or treatment. The disease exhibits tremendous geographic variation. For instance, the rate of transmission and the virulence are both far greater in the Northeastern United States and in dense urban areas.

One potential vector for the disease has been identified. Unfortunately, the vector has an adaptation that allows it to avoid detection. This adaptation is known as an NDA, which is injected into not only all afflicted physicians, but also all individuals in a position to support them. The NDA allows the vector to infect any host with an MD or DO without any resistance or immune response.

While the disease has been reported to result in death in some cases and is felt to inflict long term psychological damage in most cases, thus far little data has been collected. A spokesperson for the US Health System put it this way. ‘You must understand that this disease has only been recognized for a century or so. Given its novelty, we have not yet had the opportunity to assign it an ICD code. Therefore, cases resulting in death, psychological injury, and any other bad outcome go unrecorded. Incidentally, our data shows that the physician workforce has never been happier.’

Initial infection can last for years and does not appear to confer any immunity. Many physicians  suffer repeated infections. When the infection resolves, approximately 20-30% of affected physicians have their name entered in a databank, while the remainder receive a brief email explaining that they were never infected in the first place, but reminding them that in case they want to discuss their experience, the NDA is permanent. The spokesman stated that if the disease ever does become recognized, they plan to categorize it as an STD. He went on to say, ‘You see, while this disease is not sexually transmitted, like an STD there is intense stigma surrounding it. This causes afflicted physicians to suffer in silence, which mercifully allows us to completely ignore the issue.’

The dearth of research on this as-yet-unnamed disease may also be due to a discrepancy in the value assigned to the well-being of patients and doctors. While the societal value assigned to patient harm continues to spike to unprecedented and unsustainable levels, the value of physician well-being has lagged behind inflation for decades. Interestingly, when a physician becomes a patient, their societal value immediately increases by orders of magnitude. Furthermore, physicians who assist the vector at infecting their colleagues appear to receive both immunity and financial benefit in return.

When pressed on whether the US Health System has any plans to address this disease in the near future, the spokesman we interviewed responded thus: ‘At the moment our focus is on replacing physicians with AI and/or cheaper forms of labor. If this fails, we may consider assigning it an ICD code and officially recognizing it in the coming century. A name for the vector has been proposed, E. citcarplam. But as per current healthcare policy, prior to assigning any new disease a scientific name, we must first have our lawyers ensure that the name does not offend any politicians, judges or trial lawyers.’

A spokesman for the MMA (Medical Malpractice Association)—not to be confused with the more civil sport with the same acronym--chased down this reporter to ask how his organization might profit from physician misery. When I whispered to him the proposed name of the vector he muttered something about a conflict of interest, then smiled broadly and said he’d go back to chasing what he chases best.

For now, the only known treatment appears to be removal from the humid continental climate of the Northeastern United States. Debate continues as to whether the unnamed vector is a living organism or simply a viral parasite that only qualifies as alive when leeching off of doctors. As for whether physicians should continue to live and practice in the Northeast, the US Health System spokesperson replied ‘While there is nothing we can do to protect doctors in the Northeast from this disease, there are many great restaurants, sports teams and schools in that part of the country. Furthermore, if doctors were to leave the Northeast, there is a concern that the vector would evolve to infect a new host. Therefore, for the benefit of every other human and corporation in the Northeast we humbly ask them to stay put.’

Silenced Dogood, Correspondent

The opinions and positions expressed in this article and on this website are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the positions of WVU, UHA or WVUHS.

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