Linda Peeno: Voice Lessons

We must learn to use our voices, "however small, and sometimes weak and ineffective," writes physician and ethicist Dr. Linda Peeno, "to understand and change the sources of suffering."

Die Mütter (The Mothers) 1921-22, woodcut by Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945)

TFP is honored to publish “Voice Lessons,” an important essay by physician and ethicist Linda Peeno. Some of you may already be familiar with her. Laura Dern played Dr. Peeno in the 2002 docudrama “Damaged Care,” and she was featured prominently in “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary about the U.S. healthcare system. In the 1990s, Peeno’s medical expertise was used by corporate healthcare to deny care that would have saved a patient’s life. Consequently, she quit her high-paying job and has devoted herself over the following decades to defending patients against the sophisticated managed-care machinery that she knows from experience contributes to untold harm. Testifying before Congress in 1996, she asked, “What kind of system have we created when a physician can receive a lucrative income for adding to the suffering of patients?” But “Voice Lessons” is far from a straightforward case for moral heroism. It gr…