Prof. Forestieri hopes, once the coronavirus tsunami has passed, a return to the ancient alliance between doctor and patient, which over the years has left room for ever increasing tensions and unfortunately for all to see.
It is common opinion that the coronavirus epidemic has changed, is changing and will change our life, our way of interfacing with the other, the different, the disabled, our scale of values, needs, fatuous things. I hope so, although I fear that human nature will have the upper hand as soon as fear and anguish pass.
The only ones that have not changed are, if you think about it, the doctors, nurses, auxiliary staff and all those who work for the good of others, every day, regardless of the color of the skin, religion, social conditions. Of course we are not all missionaries, some, few in truth, yield excessively to venality, but all carry out their profession to the best of their ability and as far as the structures in which they operate allow.
On March 14, 2020, at 12.00, in Italian cities, many Italian nationals applauded the Italian doctors and nurses for the work done, as if it were, for them, a novelty or an exceptional event. I was unable to appear or even applaud. I perhaps had a bitter smile, thinking back to all the quixotic battles waged during my presidency of the Italian College of Surgeons, not only representing the approximately 35.000 surgeons of the various branches and different specialties but also of all the doctors, the nurses and various health workers. Those were the times when there was a fury, often even beyond the lawful, towards doctors and surgeons for an alleged medical error, in which, very often, the incompressible and inevitable complications of an intervention or an act were also confused. doctor. Instead of the desired respect and consideration, we found ourselves in a climate of suspicion and quarrel, often not spontaneous but instigated by some media, various associations and particular professional categories, up to countless verbal and physical attacks or tens of thousands of complaints, in largely pretexts and, in fact, attempts at illegal enrichments. It should have been in everyone's interest to calm the environment and mitigate, if not abolish, the growing and, often, pretentious doctor-patient conflict, making a pact of a new therapeutic alliance, which had great respect for the patient's rights but also for dignity professional doctor.
We hope that the applause of March 14 will be replaced by the real and lasting understanding of what is done daily by all health professionals and will be the basis of a desirable and desired new therapeutic alliance.