Mr. Dean, on 6 Jul 1998, you published at the J.Post,

The recent spate of violence against doctors should not blind us to the fact that many patients, or their relatives and friends, have legitimate grievances against the medical profession.

I had the impression that the violence is a result of wrongly channeled legitimate grievances.

These criminal attacks should be roundly condemned; nevertheless, justified complaints of patients should be thoroughly examined.

These are societal axioms.

Some doctors consider themselves something akin to "gods" and distance themselves from their patients. They are brusque, short-tempered, unwilling to take time to explain their findings (all too often their suppositions) to the sick. Their patients are "objects", not human beings.
"Do you expect me to tell you in two minutes what it took me 10, 20 or 30 years to learn?"
(Those doctors certainly didn't learn any manners during those years; most never even learned to write in a legible handwriting so another doctor could read their report).

You should try to read many Hebrew handwritings from educated academicians, including judges, especially when they find me guilty of having picked apricots from my own tree!

Of course, there is a method in their madness. Many doctors also have lucrative private practices. They work for a sick fund only as a mean of attracting "customers". For a hefty fee, these same doctors are willing to don their best "bed-side" manner and answer a patient's questions, calm their fears --which often eases their road to recovery.

Too vague within an apparent exactitude. What percentage do those doctors constitute ? Well-known, well-based complaints, and I know some of those doctors. The important question is, why should a patient choose to be treated by them? Doctors thrive by means of the recommendations of their patients.
A friend once told me that Dr. X, a famous surgeon, was a 'thief,' who charged excessively.

"Imagine, he wanted Y sum for a simple hernia repair, which any third rate surgeon can perform with eyes shut."
"Why not go to a cheap, open-eyed, second rate one?" I asked.
"When my health is at stake, I choose the best," he answered, self-righteously.

Some years later he accuse me of being a thief.

It is no wonder that "alternative" medicine has attracted so many patients. Definitely no! It is not the kind of doctor, it is the kind of results obtained with several doctors.

On the administrative side, the shortcomings are immense. Take Beilinson Hospital, the "flagship" of the General Sick Fund. The complex consists of a maze of buildings and departments; signs directing patients are few and far between. And all are in Hebrew. Every Israeli should learn Hebrew, of course, but the time to force the language down one's throat is not when one is in pain, bewildered, and confused. Let's put aside provinciality. Let's put us signs and directions also in Arabic, English, German, French, etc.

On these type of WELL-BASED complaints, I tend to agree that doctors are not gods. The public is kindly invited to throw stones at Beilinson, and to insult its administrator even in Japanese...

But then, of course, the entire medical system is built for the convenience of doctors - not for the sick. It if weren't, the medical profession would set up its own ombudsman.

Patients go, doctors remain. Were I to tell my own complaints against some of them, mommele...

This would go far to convince the sick that doctors always alibi each other when one makes a mistake.

Don't generalize me, I did never commit a mistake, I think...

But will anything be done before suing doctors for malpractice becomes as popular in Israel as it is in America?

Suing just doctors? Here is an abbreviated list of Ghitis Complaints, reified as all kinds and manners of suits:

1) Today I filed against Bank Hapoalim, Merkaz Hacarmel, Haifa, included its Manager and my personal advicer, 2000 NIS. She made me waste time, got a parking ticket, was angry, forgot to pick up wife waiting for me with watermelon and ice cream in both hands.
2) Same bank, different people, for misbehavior, 15000 NIS, 2 weeks ago.
3) The State of Israel, for having previously dared to find me guilty of wetting all over, from head to toes, my neighbor, who looked like a chicken emerging from a pond. Also, because I had told him to get himself into the toilet and flush it down. Only the latter incrimination was found to be acceptable, whereby I got 1000 NIS back out of the original 2000 fine.
4) Tomorrow is my birthday, so that I kept it law-suit clean. 5) The day after, again Ghitis vs. the State, for having found me guilty of cutting my neighbor's black garden-irrigation-pipe. I had thought it was a black snake... Pure self-defense. Besides, the judge is an SOB...
6) As yearly, my neighbor brought me to court, this time for refusing to pay him 100 INS as my participation in the flat roof's whitening. This time I alleged that he had to recognize my expenses incurred in maintaining the shelter. He said that my cat used it for something not nice. I said I had strictly forbidden it to use the neighbor's area, and that it was HIS cat that behaved in an unconscionable manner. Since they don't have a cat, and the cat's name was coincidentally his wife's, he was unreasonably angry. I complained that many times I had been unfairly found guilty, and that I was tired of predermined judgments against me. I hope it sounds convincing....
Well, Mr. Dean, I suppose you are not interested in the remaining 21 cases, bye...