"The Gaping Peaks - The Triumph of Dogma in Health Care" presents anecdotal examples, as well as ethical, financial, and logistical concerns, that highlight the inconsistences and faults that exist in health care today. Dr. Silber analyzes the commonly proposed solutions to this dilemma, with the crux being that health coverage isn't interchangeable with health care. Insurance for the unforeseen has morphed into entitlements and has bred indifference, unaffordability, and inaccessibility. Illustrations of care depict a variety of physician and patient types. Despite adherence to protocol, outcomes are variable. They depend on who we are and on who cares for us and about us.
This work isn't a history book or a volume of research; rather it is a collection of stories, insights and opinions. Health care now requires the navigation of a complex "Equation of Care" in which the initial key elements of the patient-physician relationship are displaced by the agendas of unnecessary yet required intermediaries.
Dogma, or what we think we need, and what is hailed as correct and indisputable and promises to elevate us to a new height of achievement, is the cornerstone of this equation. What everyone else does is established as the standard, is assumed to be correct, and becomes a right. The death spiral into the abyss is an inevitable destiny when the premise of the Dogma is false, and no one cares to notice.