Drug Medical Information

GOODBYE" BYPASS -"HELLO' CIIEIATION! THE MADISON AVENUE STYLE 'HARD-SELL'

The Madison Avenue style 'hard-sell' is usually effective with frightened patients not as knowledgeable as Mr. T. Surgery by intimidation - "get bypassed today or you might be dead tomorrow" - speeds many a reluctant, but vulnerable individual, on his way to the surgical suite. Others may be more easily persuaded by the 'soft-sell'. A group of Maryland cardiologists distribute a clever fifty-two page multi-color booklet entitled Everything You Need to Know About Heart Surgery lo surgical candidates. With more than half the contents devoted to full-page cartoons, and the balance to gushy, light-hearted text, it is clearly designed to be more disarming than informative. Despite the propaganda, most people would, if they could, avoid surgery. Not many suspect they have a realistic option. Should one ask, "Is this operation really necessary?", cardio surgeons respond in a way sure to get the patient on tlT operating table as quickly as possible. "You have nothing to worry about. It's a common procedure. We've checked the O.R. schedule, and lucky you - we can fit you right in." That's precisely what the doctors told Michael Keaton, a 'fictional' bypass patient, in a slice-of-life 1989 episode of NBC's top-rated sit-com Family Ties. Bypass surgery has become so commonplace, the media plays it for laughs. In the scene cited, Keaton's surgeons tried to allay his fears by speaking of his operation as a "patient-doctor team effort." Keaton responded with a sure-fire laugh-getter: "Okay. You lie down and I'll do the surgery." Another bypass patient - this one a retiree - quips: "We expected to travel all over the world - never planned on traveling to the hospital instead." When the man dies on the operating table, the surgeon's black humor: "Transfer him to the ECU - (Eternal Care Unit)." In another prime-time TV show Doctor, Doctor, two surgeons argue over whether they should have warned a patient who died on the operating table of the risks of bypass surgery. What for?" asks the Rambo-like doc. "If he'd lived, he'd be pain free." The punch line: "I get it. It's our job to take people out of their misery even if it kills 'em." Don't be put off guard by the one-liners. Bypass surgery is no laughing matter.

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