presidents worth more than us? Options

[T00000]

So I recently came across this article on yahoo news. One section struck me as odd:

Several surgeons uninvolved in Clinton's care said they didn't think his doctors would risk treating him with newer, experimental approaches like robotic surgery or laparoscopy, sometimes called keyhole surgery.


"With three-vessel disease in a president, I don't think I'd be doing it," said Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood, chief of cardiovascular surgery at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., and a spokesman for the American College of Cardiology.

Does this mean that average people are less important than presidents? Or what? Because if these procedures are "dangerous" then why would it be okay to do them on other people and risk their lives more than the lives of presidents? It worries me you know... hm.

[*thesweetescape*]

If I was going to operate on him, I think I'd use more care than opearting an average guy.

No doubt, screwing up on the average patient will be career suicide, and all your money goes poof, plus someone's death on your head.

Screwing up on someone as famous as a president, its career suicide, no money, a death on your head, plus the entire world will know you as the so called surgeon who killed a president.

Lincoln - Oswald
JFK - Harvey
Clinton - _____

is what the textbooks would say.


and no argument here, doctors should value life as equal for everyone!

John Wilkes Booth (Boothe?) killed Lincoln, not Oswald. Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

Sadly, the reality is that presidents and other famous people are going to be getting better care than us. It's not ever day that you get the opportunity to do surgery on a former president...it might even boost your career because, inevitably, your name will better known than before. It seems unfair, but it's reality. As for testing something on a president...I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to. With all the malpractice law suits going on, I would be a little afraid to try something for the first time on any patient, let alone Bill Clinton.

Edit: I just read that you said they weren't testing something on Clinton for the first time but it was/is still new...I still wouldn't want to try it out on a former president unless it's completely necessary.