There are now a million templates and decision trees and practice guidelines,

the underlying intent of which is to make medicine and medical care idiot proof.

Medicine cannot be made idiot proof because idiots will always find a way to start or end in the wrong place.

Welcome to Current Affairs.

My name is Nathan Robinson.

I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine, and I am here with my colleague.

Current Affairs Online Editor Lily Sanchez.

Hello, Lily.

Hi, everyone.

And our guest today is Dr. Mark Vonnegut.

He is for the author of several books, including the Eden Express, and most recently his new book,

The Heart of Caring, A Life in Pediatrics available from Seven Stories Press.

Dr. Vonnegut, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you.

So your book is, it's a memoir of your life as a pediatrician.

It is also a series of snapshots and vignettes

about the contemporary medical system. You take apart, you take us inside the world of practice

from the time that you began several decades ago to the present day.

And one of the themes that recurs throughout the book is the way that the practice of medicine

has changed over the medical system in the United States in particular has changed over the years that you have

been inside it. Not really for the better. And so I wonder if perhaps we could start with

kind of a broad overview of some of those changes that you've witnessed that you try to document

...