During part of the tenure of the 1974 National Health Planning Act [Public Law 93-641], I worked on the only 'Patient-Governed Ward' at our State [psychiatric] Hospital. We did not have a psychiatrist assigned there, rather a 'National Health Service Corps' Family Physician, who went to 'great lengths' to assist a Patient who previously worked as a Public School Teacher, who was also an 'Incest survivor'-but when given a sex-educ 'task' at her teaching job, started 'having problems'.
At about that time, the 'Health Law Project Library Bulletin' published an article by a Family Physician who described three 'patients' who taught him things that weren't included in his medical school curriculum: 1) was a 'couple' wanting a 'home birth'-who taught him how he said he would have liked to have been born; 2) was an elderly man, near death, who wished to die at home, surrounded by family and friends... who taught him how dying with dignity might occur; and 3) a 'Heroin Addict' he passed outdoors on his walk to his office every morning, who he usually acknowledged/later greeted...turned out to also be a VietNam Veteran who had been at a Landing Zone machine gun post, at night, when the 'VC had attacked, and unbeknownst to the 'gunner', the VC had marched all the women and children of a nearby village in front of the Viet-Cong's advance on the landing zone. When the sun came out, the machine gunner had 'discovered' all the dead unarmed women and children...During a conversation with the Physician, on the street one day the man had shared this. The Physician explained that it was not entirely the 'gunners' fault, as combat-under those conditions is challenging, Less than a week or so later, the Veteran asked him for help quitting heroin, and was able to successfully do so a short time later.