Just got home yesterday after having my hip replaced on Friday. Spent a lot of time in the hospital with doctors, nurses, therapists, technicians and others. People who do that for a living are real live saints in my book.
Medical professionals take an oath to “First, do no harm.” So, it has been especially ironic to me to hear airline executives and lobbyists mouth the words “do no harm” when they argue against investing in fixing, maintaining, upgrading, and expanding our aviation infrastructure. They said it over and over these past few weeks; it is clearly the new talking point.
First, I can’t figure out how failing to fix, upgrade and expand our infrastructure meets any definition of “no harm.”
Second, the airline talking point leaves out an important word: “first”. The oath says “First, do no harm.” The oath then urges medical professionals forward in healing the patient. This is the part the airlines miss entirely.
If the medical profession used the airline approach to that oath, I’d guess hip replacements would never have been invented. Same with knee replacements and so on. We probably wouldn’t have organ transplants or any of the other things we take for granted.
The goal isn’t just to “do no harm.” The goal is to “FIRST, do no harm,” and then set about trying to improve the situation.
I must admit that the airlines seem disciplined with this new anti-infrastructure talking point. But they will leave us in the dark ages of aviation infrastructure and ensure that the patient never really gets better.
