Shawn Whatley - Doc, Author, Thinker

This—the latest Free Speech in Medicine conference speaker interview—is with Dr. Shawn Whatley. Shawn has the intellectual range to read and speak about subjects from medical administration to philosophy and political science, and the range of focus to go from the rapid fire job of ER doc to writing books. (As a typical ER personality on the ADD side of the spectrum, I’m best writing short bursts only!). He is a fellow of the MacDonald-Laurier institute, an author of two books (and counting), a former (very successful) head of ER, and a practicing doctor. One of the verboten things in Canada is to criticize our healthcare system. We were trained to insist it was the best in the world, although it never actually was and is far from that now. In fact, it has one of the worst cost-to-performance ratios amongst developed countries. But healthcare is our sacred cow. We are taught that any criticism of medicare will inevitably end with Canada adopting a “US-style” system. Canadians have been trained to think there are only two possible choices—ours or theirs. And ours is great. Right? Shawn thinks (and I happen to agree) that we need to honestly discuss the problems with medicare, or our attempts to improve our healthcare system are doomed to be “putting lipstick on a pig.” Can we actually consider (gasp!) privately-run care in Canada? Are doctors independent agents who have a relationship directly with their patient? Or are they agents of the medical system—essentially cogs in a big faceless healthcare machine? Do bureaucrats have the right to insert themselves into the doctor-patient relationship? Thanks to Shawn for a great chat. I’m looking forward to hearing him in more detail at the conference. Check out his writing at ShawnWhatley.com. Once again, remember to check out the details of our Oct 28-30th FSIM conference at FreeSpeechInMedicine.com. Shawn is just one of many amazing speakers. If you can’t come in person, plan to register for the livestream. We’ll be posting that link when the tech is finalized. Get full access to Pairodocs’ Collection of Heresy at pairodocs.substack.com/subscribe