金融時報:領導人該不該公開健康狀況？

所屬教程:金融時報原文閱讀

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2021年09月25日

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領導人該不該公開健康狀況？

當之前非常健康的人突然被診斷出患有一種嚴重疾病時，秘而不宣的愿望通常是很強的——這關其他人什么事？但是，對于政治領導人和商業(yè)領導人，他們負責招聘和解雇人員、做出可能意義深遠的并購和處置決定，當他們生病，我們是否有權知曉？

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

tumour瘤；腫瘤[?tu?m?r]

colon[解剖] 結腸；冒號['k??l?n]

authoritative有權威的[??'θ?r?t?t?v; -,te?t?v]

thyroid甲狀腺；甲狀腺的['θa?r??d]

concussion沖擊；震蕩；腦震蕩[k?n'k??(?)n]

prostate cancer前列腺癌['pr?ste?t]

ailment小??；不安['e?lm(?)nt]

pancreatic胰的；胰腺的[,p?nkr?'?t?k]

apartheid種族隔離[?'pɑ?the?t; ?'pɑ?ta?d]

robust強健的；健康的[r?(?)'b?st]

Trump, Clinton and our right to know about our leaders' health （799words）

By Michael Skapinker

“The president has cancer.” It is 31 years since Steven Rosenberg, a member of the surgical team that removed a tumour from President Ronald Reagan's colon, made that announcement to the world.

What I remember, from watching on television, is not only how calmly definitive Dr Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the US National Cancer Institute, was, but how clearly he described Reagan's condition and its consequences. “There are many forms of cancer,” he said. As this one had not spread, the president's chances of living a normal lifespan were “excellent”. Reagan lived another 19 years, dying in 2004 at the age of 93.

Harold Bornstein, Donald Trump's doctor, has been less authoritative. In a four-paragraph letter, addressed “to whom my (sic) concern”, which he says he wrote in five minutes while a Trump team car waited outside, he described the Republican candidate's health as “astonishingly excellent” and said that he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”.

Hillary Clinton's doctor wrote a more detailed account, mentioning the Democratic candidate's underactive thyroid and a concussion in 2012, but said she “was in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States”. The only problem is that the letter was written more than a year ago.

Do we have a right to know the details of our political leaders' health? And does the same apply to business leaders, responsible for hiring, firing and making potentially far-reaching acquisition and disposal decisions? Should we hear when they become ill?

Apple attracted criticism for revealing too little about the pancreatic cancer that killed Steve Jobs, its founder, in 2011. But other chief executives have kept us up to date on their ailments.

In 2012, investor Warren Buffett announced that he had prostate cancer, that he would have daily radiation treatment for two months, but that his condition was “not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way”.

In 2014, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, announced that he had throat cancer and, five months later, after treatment, that his tests had come back “completely clear”.

Not all business leaders have curable conditions. In 2013, SABMiller announced that Graham Mackay, its chief executive, was stepping down three months early after undergoing surgery for a brain tumour. Mackay, who was SABMiller's leading figure as it turned itself from an apartheid-era South African company into an international brewer, returned briefly as non-executive chairman. He died that year.

When a previously robust person is suddenly presented with a shocking-sounding medical diagnosis, the desire to keep it private is often strong. What business is it of anyone else?

But in these corporate cases, disclosure seems to have been the better option. If people in the public eye appear to be under-par, as Jobs did, rumours start. It is better to get the truth out.

Apart from stopping the gossip, talking about illness serves two other positive purposes. It alerts people, whether employees or not, to possible problems with their own health. Mr Blankfein said he had felt unwell for several weeks before his lymphoma was discovered. Anyone reading that who felt similarly low might be encouraged to make an appointment with their doctor.

It might also aid their discussions with their doctors about what treatment they need, or if they need treatment at all.

Marc Garnick, a Harvard Medical School professor, wrote that if he had had an octogenarian patient with Mr Buffett's condition, he would have advised “active surveillance” rather than radiation treatment.

The second and more important reason for knowing about our leaders' health is that it breaks down the idea of the all-knowing imperial boss.

Leaders, like the rest of us, are incomplete. They are not always at their best. Illness reminds us of that. A chief executive slowing down while having hospital treatment is no bad thing. The next breakthrough will be when companies and their leaders feel they can be equally candid abut depression and mental health.

If chief executives need to step back because they are ill, they should, if they have done their jobs properly, have deputies who can take over, and teams that can take the strain.

The US presidency is the mightiest post on earth, invested with more authority than any reigning monarch's. Yet no president can function without a strong team, because commanders-in-chief have bad days too, and they suffer health problems.

As we live longer and work until we are older, top managers, along with everyone else, will discover there is more that can go wrong with their health.

There is no shame in that, provided they have people around them to help manage it. Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton should provide detailed up-to-date accounts of their health, preferably from doctors who can write in measured, professional tones.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內容，完成以下自測題目：

1.How many years did Reagan live after the announcement?

A.1

B.19

C.31

D.93

答案(1)

2.What's wrong with Hillary Clinton in 2012?

A.thyroid cancer

B.concussion

C.prostate cancer

D.cardiopathy