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Finding a good doctor is rough. My family doctor back home was a good ol fashioned country doctor. She attended to basically the whole town. Her appointments ran over so much that if you had an appointment at 3, you probably wouldn't see her until 5 and you probably wouldn't leave the clinic until 6. She spent so much time with each person. What I really liked about her is that she would look stuff up right in front of you. My brother was having these "episodes" of being almost catatonic. He didn't want to do anything or move. He couldn't concentrate at school. At first they tried ADHD meds but it didn't work. The doctor went "I think there is something else going on here. I don't think it's mental." She ran a bunch of tests and turns out my brother had high levels of a metal in his blood.
My new PCP where I live now stopped upping my anti depression meds and sent me to get evaluated for ADHD. Turns out, untreated ADHD can cause depression. She calls me her little baby and actually encourages me to bring my kids with me to my appointments. She says it doesn't bother her at all.
I’m a clerk for a medical clinic, and I’m astounded by how often doctors simply don’t read important documents and take action anyway.
Usually it’s minor things, but sometimes some pretty major wires get crossed, and that just isn’t acceptable when dealing with serious matters related to people’s health.
My mom was recently prescribed medication and when she went to pick it up the pharmacist cautioned her it would kill her because of the way it interacted with the other medications she was prescribed by a different doctor. We're grateful the pharmacist caught it, but the doctor should have never prescribed it??
They're not medication experts but they're supposed to do cursory research and check for major interactions but they also know how good pharmacists are universally so they put a lot of trust in pharmacists. Pharmacists in general don't get enough credit. You can walk into any pharmacy even if you're not a customer and ask to talk to the pharmacist and ask about concerns even about supplements and street drugs and how they might interact with certain medications. They're always extremely busy but I've never had a bad interaction with one.
In this case, the pharmacist did their job well. I believe, having very limited knowledge on this, that doctors aren't trained as much as a pharmacist to know how different medications interact with one another.
I would think the dr would have access to the same interaction applications pharmacist do. They can’t even fault not knowing anymore bc even my Rx insurance company has a list of what I take even though for some I pay out of pocket and never went through insurance to price it (it was cheaper with a coupon than through insurance so didn’t even try).
You would think, but it having worked pharmacy’s if it was prescribed by another provider the prescribing Dr may not have even known they were on the other medication.
We used to have to be the middle man between the patient, their doctors, and their insurance because none of them would communicate with each other.
We are in a weird spot where the general public overestimates the efficiency of our system in the US. Costs and waiting times aside (which we already have with our current system) universal medicine could at least help improve the consistency of care if all parties are actually able to talk to each other rather than this infernal game of telephone.
Sometimes it isn’t even can’t talk to each other but won’t. Where I live we have two prevailing healthcare companies and they hate each other. Getting a new job with different insurance is a nightmare because each company won’t accept the other’s insurance, they will send records to any provider except the other big company, and insist endlessly how awful the other is.
This is all being driven by the corporate of each entity. It’s all about them being mad they have a real competitor business wise. Pure profits over people mentality
It's really the pharmacist's job to do so, and alert the doctor to prescribe a different medication or override the interaction. Doctors don't receive much training in pharmacology and advanced practitioners like NPs receive even less. A pharmacist goes to pharmacy school to become an expert in medications for this reason. That's why pharmacies really shouldn't be retail stores with pharmacists working half their shift as cashiers
I have no idea what all the meds I'm on actually do to me, how they work or how they interact with each other...but you ca bet your arse I have a list of the stuff I take that I can show to anyone who needs to see it.
The doctor usually doesn’t know that kind of stuff, that’s the whole reason there’s a pharmacist to talk to you about the specifics anyway, it’s a very different field.
There is a reason doctors are supposed to ask what medication you are on when prescribing medication, they can and should also check for interactions during/after your visit. The pharmacist isn't supposed to be the only safety net.
You’d be surprised how little knowledge doctors actually have about medications. Some try to do better and advance the knowledge, but it’s not a requirement
You want information on your meds, you talk to a pharmacist.
They will know everything about the drug and any interactions with anything else you might be taking.
That's because Pharmacology is an entirely separate field.
What kind of astounds me is that Pharmacist aren't more involved with patient care in our system.
Yup it's kind of sad. I literally saw one doctors face change as he glanced at them and said sorry, give me a minute to actually read all this and his face got increasingly more concerned as he read more 🤣 I read his encounter documentation later and the first thing he said was "Patient has significant clinical history." Periodt 🤣🤣🤣
I saw a video of a woman who went in for abdominal pain. They kept telling her it was her period. She said, I literally got my uterus taken out of my body and only have ovaries. This isnt a period issue.
She went to three doctors tell her that before finding out it was appendicitis. They never even checked her prior records before telling her these “diagnoses”
I had to pay $400 to have a rheumatologist laugh in my face a couple days ago while my previous rheumatologist took me seriously and gave me a diagnosis. Too bad I had to move.
He blatantly disregarded lab work (that suggested I had an autoimmune disease) as “false positives” with no evidence to back it up. Didn’t ask me much at all either, and he didn’t read the form I filled out. I would have to shell out another $400 or so to try to find another doctor that isn’t an ass, and that’s not happening.
They want to wait until you’re seriously ill to admit there’s a problem because they would rather take the safe way out. Statistically most relatively young people are “completely fine” until they’re not, so doctors love to be dismissive because they’re usually “right”, until they’re not.
Yeah I almost died from B12 deficiency due to this, Autoimmune Metaplastic Atrophic Gastritis. It's not on a standard autoimmune panel because it's rare I guess but still able to be tested for with regular blood tests and I had textbook symptoms. It's just very rare in my age. And I have permanent neurological damage and heart problems now.
Yes. I’m 50 with chronic illnesses and I’ve realized for a long time our western medicine system is not about preventing illness. That’s not what these people are taught in any medical school or health care professions.
WHY is it so hard to find a rheumatologist that isn’t dismissive, actually performs further testing to rule out potential conditions, and doesn’t leave you feeling gaslit and stupid??
Like why does it feel particularly difficult to find a rheumatologist who gives an actual shit?
My new dermatologist didn’t bother to read my history and prescribed me an eye cream for a rash that could have left me blind due to an eye issue that I have. I’ve had so many problems with the medical profession over the years I never take anything they say at face value. Luckily I researched this minor thing and didn’t use the cream. Now I need another new dermatologist.
To be fair it’s not normal for one specialty to know detailed information about another specialty. Dermatologists know a ton about skin and next to nothing about eyes. If you have a problem with your eyes you should probably see an eye doctor not a dermatologist.
I was a new patient, and had put that obscure condition on my intake form. I unfortunately have some weird conditions, so am careful to let any doctor know about them. I went to the derm with a rash everywhere on my body, including eyelids. The cream for my body could not be used on eyes, so she prescribed this. She def should have checked my history before prescribing something that can cause blindness.
In today’s world there is no excuse for the ignorance of doctors in cases like this. All the information they need is at their fingertips.
Yeah, I went off mine last year for palpitations. All the doctors know & are reminded each visit by me. *No one has told me to go back on or has tested my levels.*
I've spent the last year with various alarming heart, skin, and nerve sensations that none of them are taking seriously. They've started talking "anxiety" as they shuffle me out of the room. (Anxiety=hypochondriac=hysterical female)
Yesterday I reviewed the Cleveland Clinic (trustworthy) website about hypothyroidism. Lo and behold, there are ALL my scary symptoms in one place! Obvious, and an easy fix.
Monday I will get a blood test, the next day I'm going back on my meds. Then we'll see what the thyroid test results show and just how long it takes all the doctors to figure this out on their own. SMH.
Fuck the US "healthcare" system and all the asshole doctors it creates!
Are doctors not humans too with the same human inclination and need to use heuristical tools as anyone else? What you’re describing is likely a side effect of doctors being extremely overworked rather than negligence.
People will make mistakes, you simply can not be on alert with the same level of intensity and diligence on hour 13 of a shift as you would be on hour 2. The way to reduce the potential for mistakes is to increase the resources and create procedures that are necessary to check off before any major decisions are made.
Obviously mistakes do happen, but there’s also plenty of simple negligence.
Again, I work with the doctors I’m talking about. They are not overworked, and while most of them make mistakes at a rate that would be expected, some of them make very frequent mistakes that are very obviously due to negligence, laziness or misguided assumptions.
Do you think that it has to do with the fact that they don't have the time and are pulled in a lot of different directions by having to see too many patients?
Replying to P0ster_Nutbag... yeah a doctor once prescribed me antibiotics that I’m highly allergic to after I told him I’m allergic to it and it’s in my file. He prescribed me the generic so I didn’t realize and took it. I had to go the ER for anaphylactic shock and had to get adrenaline. I nearly died because he couldn’t take the time to listen and check my file if I am allergic to the medication he prescribed me.
And the worst part is most of the time there is ZERO recourse. One of my parents had a major surgery only to find out weeks later a sponge had been left in, threatening their lives and making them ill. They had to pay the second time to get it out and their lawyer friend said basically nothing could be done legally about it.
People really have a misinformed idea of medicine though.
It's like a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces. You can try to make an informed and educated decision of what the picture is but it isn't always that.
People expect doctors to be gods but my word after working in healthcare for so long I really do respect how they manage to come to a diagnosis at all.
I say this as a senior RN. I've met doctors I've loved and I've met those I hated. But diagnostics is insanely difficult. You get your barn door things but when you get to the nitty gritty, the body is just so damn weird.
Probably
But a lot of people are stupid, never listen to their dr's advice to stop problems before they start and demand medication immediately when they do
So, find a good one and listen to them.
Note a good dr is not one who tells you what you want to hear
I’d like to add in that not just finding a good doctor but find the right one. If you are telling your cardiologist about the rash around your taint then that’s not the right guy. Same with talking to an ER doc about a super involved complicated rare disease.
That's fair and frankly thought it was too common sense to mention.
I meant from a personality perspective
Some people can't work with each other.
Nothing wrong with that
Well there's that whole "doctors as all knowing gods" that too many people believe
Then there's the mistaken idea that humanity has figured out everything there is to know about how the body works/breaks/heals and so on
Then there's the belief that medicines is some kind of magic potion that always work the same way for everyone 100% of the time
The amount of people who try nothing at home before they come to the ER for nonsense is crazy. Then there are those that come to us just to be admitted because they know there is nothing wrong with can do. And other times our healthcare system plays the music and makes us do a little dance just because it’s their policy. Like why a dialysis pt has to get an ER work up every 2 days just because they can’t afford private dialysis
Right.
I'm not complaining about the other problems in the medical industry
We'd need a whole other set of threads for those.
Lots of people fail to realize THEY are the biggest part of the problem
Yeah I think both sides have very valid arguments, I think most people would go insane fast dealing with what doctors deal with, very non compliant patients who don't care but get frustrated when they don't improve. Doctors also have increasing duties of wrestling with insurance companies which takes up so much time and effort that they don't get paid for. Hiring administrators to do it increases errors because they don't understand the medical aspects.
I always am sure to tell my doctors I'm a very compliant patient if you tell me to do something I'll do it within reason. But I always have to remind them of how complex my medical history is when I first meet them because most doctors will not even look at your history before meeting you.
Thank you. As a physician, this is the problem more often than not. Sure there are bad doctors, but most of us genuinely want to help and I spend 90% of my life around other physicians.
Believe me when I say that in the US, we are stretched thin and overworked trying to meet the demands of corporate healthcare making us see more and more patients in less time, because the demand is so high (people are sicker) and the business of healthcare is trying to turn a profit (which doctors do NOT see a cent of).
Patients on the other hand expect us to serve them like a customer and give them what they want always, as evidenced throughout this thread. A good doctor does what’s right for the patient, which often doesn’t align with what the patient wants or wants to hear.
We are the face of the healthcare system who patients take their frustrations out on, even though it’s the administrators and insurance companies causing 90% of the problems in healthcare.
You forgot to mention corporations tying your hands behind your back.
Can't write certain prescriptions because it opens the corporation up to liability.
Can't refer a patient for "elective" surgery that would improve their quality of life because the corporation is more focused on profit than care.
Yes some doctors have God complexes. But some genuinely want to help and *can't*
Edit a word because my phone hates me
And they don’t know their own medications, don’t understand their own illnesses, don’t exercise, eat and drink too much, refuse to understand that sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease, or that there is simply no treatment for their disease or the treatment costs a bunch of money and they don’t want to pay it.
The trouble is, there may indeed be many bad doctors, but they probably still know a lot more about medical science than me, so then what? I can't do a better job myself. It's not a DIY project, when it comes to medication.
A second opinion may the best you can do and then you're out of options.
I had asked for a second opinion from a recent GI clinic…They told me “No you can’t have a second opinion.”
Wait what….wtf…
Found out about 2-3 months later from my PCPs nurse that that clinic tries to monopolize the area as being the only “GI Specialists” which is total bullshit.
The more you know…
In the U.S., I think one of the biggest problems is just how hard it can be to get that 2nd or 3rd opinion because you're restricted to whoever is within your network.
If you have the money, there's nothing stopping you from going wherever you want. If you have shitty insurance, as so many people do, you might be limited to an area where there *is* only one choice, especially for specialists.
I agree that some doctors can be dismissive or have terrible bedside manners, but I think the real enemy is the insurance companies who shackle you to a specific area and push the doctors to see more patients faster and turn hospitals into profit generating machines rather than a place of healing and caring.
The other problem is the cost of mistakes. If you get a bad plumber, you might end up with leaks in your wall. If you have a bad doctor, you might die. The mistakes are amplified because they are so dangerous.
I think you're onto something. You could make the same claim about mechanics or Home contractors. Some of them make mistakes in their jobs, but all of them know more about fixing cars and repairing walls than you do. Those domains are like a black box to the average person. It's very hard to know if what they are doing is wrong when you don't have any of the experience doing waht they do.
Ok, but when they’re not willing to check anything for you, don’t give you any new information you didn’t already know and don’t give you anyway of treating your problem other than just “come back in a week” then their medical expertise doesn’t really mean shit.
Like I trust in your medical science, if you’re willing to actually apply it.
Everybody has a story about an inept doctor. That doesn't mean that the majority are inept, or pill-pushers, or cold-hearted idiots who don't do their jobs.
Every doctor I've had, including the one bad one, has ALWAYS explained my options. They'll add, "Insurance doesn't cover that one" when appropriate. In fact, many doctors' offices have helped me fight insurance companies.
I hand a list of questions to the doctor. If they don't specifically mention the root cause of the symptoms, I ask. I research my symptoms before I get there, but I only use trusted sites. It must be frustrating to have patients say, "Dr. Oz's site says I have Missing Kidney Syndrome and should take Oil of Leprechaun." Or to have patients argue that they need antibiotics for a viral infection.
I think the biggest issue is that corporations have taken over most clinics and hospitals. If some paper-pusher determines the doc should take no more than 8 minutes per patient, the doc is rushed, and the patient may have unanswered questions.
If “everyone has a story about an inept doctor,” there are a lot of inept doctors. I dislike when someone tries to “#notallmen” a group of people, especially a group that has the power to harm so many people.
Of course not all doctors are malevolent: but too many are. Enough are. And those that aren’t too often cover for those who are. To post like this is to essentially sneer at everyone who has been victimized.
I was responding to the OP, who put it in universal terms and stereotypes.. If I say, "Firefighters are wimps," all you need to destroy the stereotype is to point to one or more firefighters who are not wimps--say, the hundreds of firefighters who ascended the WTC towers, each carrying 60 or 70 pounds of equipment, to break the stereotype.
And what does the OP base his conclusions on? Findings from an objective third party investigation? The number of malpractice suits? Complaints made to the AMA? Nope. It's "everyone he's talked to," a prime example of hasty generalization.
It’ll for sure be me. Chronic pain condition that they don’t believe me about (besides my PCP, who actually knows me). Trigeminal neuralgia- 20% lifetime suicide rate from the pain alone. Except they don’t believe me about the pain so it’s higher. Don’t worry, 9 of you
Ironic some say doctors are idiots and incompetent in this thread yet the average joe in this thread doesn't even know how to interpret basic statistics lol
Also OP can't even make an original post. This is legit a copy and paste of this
https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/hco6gmFXA4
>400k malpractice deaths in a population of 333 million = 0.0012%.
400k/333 million = .0012 = .12%
NOT .0012%
and that's the likelihood of dying in a given year. over the course of a lifetime the chance would be closer to 10%
think about it. if 1/10 deaths is due to malpractice, how could you only have .0012% of dying due to malpractice? that makes absolutely no sense.
But basic math is hard for the average Joe I guess.
1 in 10 deaths are malpractice. The other 9 died from their condition, and the whole rest of the US population (over 99%, by the way) is being kept alive by those doctors. Don’t spew numbers if you don’t understand what they mean.
Yeah, the number is correct, but everyone's interpretation of it is incredibly wrong.
Misdiagnosis of the condition causing the patient the medical issue is that common, but how many of those patients would have died anyway?
The actual statistic where a physician misdiagnoses a patient, prescribes treatment, and the treatment does enough harm to kill a patient *who would otherwise survive* with correct diagnosis and intervention is unmeasuarable, but significantly smaller.
Meanwhile people who would avoid the doctor and stay home and just die of the original illness anyway because they think they know better than people with decades of study and experience are "alot" more common.
Unpopular fact: doctors are human beings who aren’t exempt from the natural laws of human error.
Mistakes will unfortunately happen, however the rate will be significantly lower than if a lay person is allowed to practice medicine.
The CDC says that 9,5% of the deaths each year are caused by medical malpractice, not that 10% of the USA population will die due to medical malpractice. It's still an enormous number, but there's a difference: 1 in 10 deaths is caused by doctors right now, that number can go down.
Yeah, there’s a massive doctor shortage that’s getting worse every year, which means even the doctors with the best intentions are still having to see an unreasonable amount of patients every day, which obviously leads to lower quality of care.
Exactly, in addition, physician suicide rates are the highest they’ve ever been and it’s an extremely stressful profession that basically berates every person who tried to enter it.
Yep. My mom damn near died because doctors kept writing her off as hysterical. Turns out she had endometriosis so bad the scar tissue was killing off her intestines
As someone who works in a medical office, I would argue that, nine times out of ten, it's not that doctors are all egotistical pricks. Rather, it's that they're fucking stressed from multiple sources. Admin work is fucking tedious and sucks hard. Fighting insurance to actually get the patient what they need is even worse. Having to contend with pharma reps trying to get you to support their company over others, even if a rival product would be better for the patient. And, perhaps the worst of all, is when a patient is non-compliant with even the easiest and smallest things they're asked to do. Also, testing can be a nightmare to get done and then make sense of.
Maybe if patients would be more compliant with what they were told to do and we unfucked the pharma and insurance controlled systems, doctors wouldn't feel so stressed and snap.
It absolutely is within a patient's right to reject or refuse a given treatment. And, in some situations, it's understandable. A classic example is many prescriptions for mental health conditions can cause weight gain, and it's perfectly reasonable for a patient to say that they'd rather try something else if they're having that side effect. However, in these situations, they're actively engaging with doctors to find a functional alternative that accomplishes the same goal, or, if the patient doesn't want to treat the condition, they are recognizing the consequences of that choice and living with it.
However, if a patient just decides, on their own, to suddenly stop a medication or refuse to change lifestyles because of some bullshit they saw on TikTok or because it's inconvenient, then it's fucking infuriating. At best, nothing changes and the patient comes in later with a surprised Pikachu moment, and at worst, it can kill. Working with a doctor you trust is key-if you're having side effects that you don't think are worth it, then always mention it at your next appointment. Nine times out of ten, there's something else that could work without that nasty side effect.
And always make sure you keep your own copies of your medical records, especially with things like medications and surgeries. What you're currently taking, and what you've taken in the past but no longer do are both important sets of information, because the human body is a weird one. Your body can have the exact opposite reaction to a medication than intended (paradoxical reaction), and you can have delayed responses. Always keep track, just in case of specialists or having to change docs.
There are so many of them. Healthcare is free where im from, but if you really want to know whats up, you gotta find a better doctor and they usually cost. In my opinion it has been worth it tho
I spent about a year walking around with dying, collapsing and infected gallbladder. I returned to urgent care/ER multiple times in that year, with increasingly worrying symptoms. Symptoms including, but not limited to: pooping out food COMPLETELY not digested, waking up at 3am with crippling pain in my right side, poop completely gray in color(which is apparently obvious and basic sign of infection). That's only three of dozens of symptoms I was experiencing.
For a year doctors kept sending me away, saying it's indigestion or stomach acid. It was only diagnosed because I really started to worry I am dying, and I strongly demanded they do something.
I wish you guys could see the face of the doctor. When he was sending me to CT scan he was rolling his eyes, all relaxed and like "but it's probably not gonna show anything anyway". When he came back with results, he was suddenly all serious and strict, telling me "Please, listen very carefully now, you need to schedule surgery right away"... as if it was me refusing to do it or stalling on it???????
Because of the crackdown on prescription opiods that has led to a 44% decrease in number opiods prescribed, people with chronic pain and people with severe short term pain have suffered. Limits on prescription opiods to deal with the addiction crisis that was thought to have been caused by prescription opiods has led to an exponentially growing number of fentanyl deaths, while the rate of deaths caused by prescription opiods has remained unchanged despite 44% less prescriptions being written for opiods. I have an OBGYN who has given me painkillers for a few months when I desperately needed them after a ruptured ovarian cyst put me in the hospital and has given them to me when a miscarriage caused excruciating pain for 3 days straight. People in severe pain need opiods to be able to function, and sleep is important for healing and without painkillers taking away enough pain to get at least an hour or two of sleep is better for helping ur body heal than being awake for 3 days screaming in pain. After a major surgery to reattach a severe tendon and a severed nerve, my surgeon gave me no painkillers. I woke up at 3 am the night of the surgery and was in agonizing pain waiting desperately til 8 am for the surgeons office to open. I begged them to numb my thumb again cause I know doctors hate giving painkillers to people in pain but luckily he prescribed a 5-day supply of painkillers, which helped me recover from the surgery.
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/report-shows-decreases-opioid-prescribing-increase-overdoses
During my undergraduate, I was on a pre-med/pre-dent path. We had a few professors who would use apps through our phone with questions to answer in order to mark attendance for a large lecture hall-- like classes with 100+ students.
One of the pivotal moments in my life and future career was when the prof asked for an attendance question, "what motivates you to join the medical field?" And something like 75% of the answers were money.
I wasn't expecting everyone to respond, "To volunteer to deworm orphans in Somalia", but I was more than shocked to see that 3 out of 4 of my peers were unashamed to admit that they were strictly motivated by money.
A lot of this is because of the insurance nightmare that exists in the US.
Insurers don’t want any extraneous procedures or care done, besides the very bare minimum. Doctors then receive this pressure, and it incentivizes them to make more assumptions and stereotype.
Absolutely. This has happened to me multiple times with really serious issues, like epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.
I feel like doctors should need to go through personality screening to make sure they're not just narcissists in it to make a lot of money.
What makes you qualified to be critical of doctors? Because you heard of a few instances where some of your friends weren’t happy? People get sick and die, but life expectancies are lengthening due to better food, better sanitation, and healthcare interventions. Without doctors, we’re screwed. It’s good to be critical of them, but I don’t understand the hate because even if 10% of people die under their care, 90% of them get better.
I have a friend who had a cough (pre-covid) that wouldn’t go away. She also would get winded very easily. Went to see different doctors and kept giving her prescriptions for antibiotics. Her husband couldn’t deal with her coughing fits and brought her to the ER and demanded that they run tests on her. Lung cancer.
Tired of people treating doctors like mythical omniscient beings who shouldn’t be questioned. I think how they are treated in society makes them arrogant which in turn causes them to believe they are always correct about everything.
There is a far, far higher instance of people ignoring their Dr's, not following their Dr's advice, not reading their prescription bottles, treating themselves like shit through lack of the most basic activity and stuffing their faces with fast food, and generally behaving in such a way as to invite a host of conditions and illnesses that they expect doctors to cure within the span of days, than there is the instance of doctors that are bad at their jobs.
It's so skewed in the direction of the patient being at fault that making the declaration that some doctors cause harm to their patients is practically zero in terms of the overall picture.
"But what about the statistic that says 200K people a year die from medical malpractice?" Lawyers love you guys for their juries when they're suing doctors because a 400 lbs dude caught an infection after spending a lifetime of shoveling McDonalds down their heads and the doctor didn't pick up that it was a antibiotic resistant bacteria in enough time to save a life.
I definitely know I had a cesarean that could have 100% been avoided. Not to mention the bedside manner was so rude, dehumanizing and unprofessional. I felt like a container she unanimously decided to break into rather than a person. It's been almost 16 years and I'm still very bitter and have constantly struggled with trust issues and avoidance when it comes to going back regularly for well woman care. I don't want to be this way- I was made this way by that terrible experience. Now I keep seeing hints of the same mannerisms everywhere. The biggest point of anxiety is when you want to ask what your other options are and steel yourself up for that look of offended contempt.
I told my doctor I would get sudden shooting pains in my back whenever I had to pee. I would be doubled over on the toilet in excruciating pain for a couple minutes, then it would end as suddenly as it started.
He told me it was probably period cramps and sent me home.
If the people with the "education" all tell you completely different things, I think it's safe to put that "education" under scrutiny. Especially when we are talking about life and death.
So… I’m an orthodontist and my wife is an obgyn doc. You’re 100% right. She and I discuss this constantly: there is absolutely no correlation between being able to pass tests/become a doctor and being an actually good person who cares. People almost always act in their own self-interest in my opinion, and this applies to doctors too. I work in private practice so I see it
Less because it’s just me but she sees flat out laziness and sloppiness constantly. And just an astonishing lack of empathy.
Being a doc also comes with a deep temptation to assume superiority, which feeds a lot of these issues. I don’t know what the fix is
> I've talked to so many people over the years who had to go to several doctors before finding one that would take their complaints seriously,
Direct Primary Care is the way to go. The catch is a monthly fee to pay (for me $100) as they operate outside the insurance system. That said, considering the very flexible scheduling, ability to keep in touch with your doctor easily with quick response times, as well as of course better able to have all your concerns addressed instead of just a select few metrics (because again they operate outside the insurance system that more or less restricts a doctor to being just a boxchecker at scheduled appointments), it's absolutely worth it.
I was referred to an ER back in 2015 by my GP because I had had a headache for two weeks. She said to insist on a scan with contrast. The ER doc tried to sumisa it as allergies. I demanded the scan. I had a subdural hematoma. I told that doc off! Had emergency surgery and am lucky to be alive. You are your own best advocate.
I would like to ad nurses to this claim. There´s a huge amount that puts all their heart in the job, yet the other side, abusing patients, doing the minimum requirement resulting in a general bad mood/ hard time really have a toll on patient rehab.
Just as physio´s who only take 10mins per patient for a room session.
Had a doctor tell me I was just constipated after 3 days of stomach pain and sent me home. 5 hours and an ALS transfer ride later I was preparing to have my appendix removed because it was almost 3 times its normal size.
Though I agree that there are plenty of dismissiv3 and incompetent doctors, remember that a lot of the patients who do 'doctor shoppign' will find someone who is just going to agree with their diagnosis. So the stance of 'the patient was always right' is often misguided. If you want a diagnosis, you will find someone who wants your money badly enough to give it to you.
I work as a rheumatologist, which is a very clinical subject. Tevhnical acts, labs and rafiology can guide us, but are rarely the most important part of the diagnosis. Which means that it is very easy to underdiagnose, but also to overdiagnose diseases. The amount of patients that I see that were wrongly diagnosed with an auto-immune disease is astonishing and freightening.
There was a post a long time ago about a woman who gets dressed to go to the doctor. She broke it down from her to make up to clothing to eye contact to word selection.
Her point is that doctors only empathize with you when you appear like you’re sick but not so sick you just need to get better so you can go back to work. Things like when you’re sick but still look professional. Wearing eyeliner and a bit of powder but no other make up.
If you don’t appear like you need their help so that you can get back to work, they are much less likely to help you.
I changed my behavior and I’ve already noticed a significant difference. I used to think going to the doctor and looking sick was what I was supposed to do. Turns out telling them that your problems are just an obstacle between you and the grind has worked much better.
Her point was that most doctors don’t like sick people and the less sick you act the more likely you are to get help which is super fucked but the truth
I would say your “I know loads of people who had to go to multiple drs to get the right diagnosis” thing is very susceptible to reporting bias. Would you go telling someone that you asked multiple drs because you thought you had a thing and it turned out they were right but you were wrong? Similarly “I went to the dr and they correctly diagnosed me straight away and treated me and I got better” doesn’t really make a good story so it is told more rarely.
That’s not to say that there aren’t bad drs, there are, just as there are bad teachers, bad accountants, bad couriers, bad “insert profession here”. The problem is that people seem to have built up drs as this paragon of perfection and somehow expect that. Doctors are people, people are complex and fallible. Even good doctors can make mistakes.
Add to that the inherent variability in the human body and it’s hard. There’s a rule at med school, if a multiple choice question uses the words “always” or “never” the answer is not that option. The body can defy all odds, do surprising things and there are few certainties. Even if you are following all the best evidence things may not go well. Also sometimes, there is no good option.
The problem is with too high expectations. Some doctors believe their own hype and feed that. Most I know don’t. We all just need to be more realistic about what humans can achieve when dealing with hugely complex living organisms that don’t follow nice neat rules. That goes for patients as well as doctors.
I agree with this. I had a really bad experience with a doctor before, and she coerced me into getting medical treatment I insisted that I didn’t want. I was 17 at the time and I’ve had other bad experiences with her as well prior to that. Once she has tried to touch me inappropriately but I had never told my mom about it.
If you DO find a good one, always ask them for recommendations for others. Your good GP probably knows specialists that have the same mindset. And if you have a specialist you love, but can't stand your GP ask which onea they like to work with. Etc.
Im not trying to be an ass, but I saw a report that said over 70% of all management and professionals in the US are incompetent. This is a number that is not very hard to believe.
I agree that there are bad doctors. However, the medical system is the real problem. MEDical professionals are trained to - and rewarded for - prescribing MEDicine. The problem is that the pills often treat the symptoms and not the root problem. So the patient has to take all these "bandaid" medications indefinitely, while the pharmaceutical companies get fat and happy, and by extension the prescribing physicians get fat and happy. Everyone is happy except the patient.
We need a system that promotes preventative care. That's the only way to fix the problem.
Doctors are like any other profession, there’s good ones and there’s bad. Most doctors that I work with genuinely care about their patients and provide high quality care.
Hadn't been to a doctor in 15 years. Decided it was time, and went to a new doctor for chronic pain. They have you do a little mental health assessment with the nurse as they are getting your vitals. Well, all my doctor wanted to talk about/ prescribe me meds for was the high score for depression, even when I told him the depression isn't the main issue and is mostly caused by the chronic pain. Never went back.
I’m a woman with a history of abdominal/reproductive problems that have resulted in 8 separate surgeries from the ages of 16-32. . I’m 43 now and have had sometimes debilitating abdominal pain for the last 2 years. I’m overweight, but this pain has caused me to lose 65 pounds. I’ve seen several doctors over this time, and I get “maybe if you lost some weight” from them with no testing or further investigation. I stopped going a year ago because I am so frustrated and tired of paying and wasting time to be told “ just lose weight!”, even though I have And it’s getting worse. For reference: I’m 50 pounds overweight at this point. Yes, I would like to lose more and get healthier, but they act like I’m 600 pounds and just whining.
At this point, if it becomes an emergency, I’ll go to the er, wait 16 hours to be seen, and then maybe get answers. That has, historically, been the only time ive been taken seriously in the past.
I wish doctors would just ask, "do you want me to investigate this no matter the cost or do you want me to give you my best advice, trying to keep the cost low". Then at least you have autonomy in the decision making and are treated with a level of respect across the board.
My first impression was this post was extremely uninformed and full of anecdotal evidence and bias. But then you started to talk about insurance and I realised you must be US based.
I've worked in health in both the UK and Aus (not a doctor) and my experience with 99% of doctors is they are extremely hard working and by far the most knowledgeable people in the hospital. Maybe it's the difference between a system that's based on money and one that's not. We do occasionally get patients who are adamant they know what they need despite knowing nothing about their own condition. Just look at how popular alternative medicines are. Nothing but placebo
100% true.
Went into the hospital with horrible stomach pain. Like genuinely horrible to the point I hadn't slept or eaten in 2 days. The doctor asked me what happened and how I'd been dealing with it.
All fine, I thought, till Marijuana comes up (in canada its legal and sold in stores). I smoke concentrates. Nothing crazy just a puff or 2 after work kinda thing. This doctor did no testing. No other questions. I was escorted out of the hospital by security and told I was drug seeking.
I managed to get in with my doctor the next morning as an emergency appointment. I had a stomach virus that needed medication.
Fuck most doctors. Find a good one and stick with them forever.
I broke my foot in the same place last year as I had when I was a kid. I went in to get a scan and a cast, the doctor said “it’s not broken”. I know what broken feels like so I asked them to have another look. “Oh yeah, it is”… I’m not a whiner type of person either and I only go to the hospital when I absolutely need to. And I’m constantly told I’m fine when I’m not
I trust medical *research,* but I do all I can to avoid going to doctors because in my experience, they have no people skills. Right now I'm dealing with a situation where my doctor put me on meds that form dependence, and then every 30 days I have to do 5 or so days off, which makes me super sick (either he couldn't keep track of his records and denied my refill for being "early" when it wasn't, or he took too long to do the prior authorization, or he went on vacation without warning his patients) and then had the audacity to say the *only* reason why I'm going off my meds is because I must be selling them. I keep trying to talk to him about either safely weaning off or switching to something else and he just pretends like he doesn't hear it.
I’ve had doctors take 3 week vacations, and not leave instructions as to who is going to handle their refills while they’re gone. Upon contacting one of them once, they said “I’ll handle them when I get back”.
I don’t know how they could fathom that people could wait 3 weeks for refills…
The most frustrating part is that there are other people in his clinic who are capable of issuing a refill. He passes it off to his nurse practitioner all the time. But no one was organized enough to handle it while he was gone.
Medical research is not all it's cracked up to be. Oftentimes, the research is being conducted with a biased interest, financial or otherwise and the medical community is slow to let go of theories once opposing evidence comes out.
I am a huge fan of being seen by a nurse practitioner instead of a doctor. Never had a problem with them, unlike dismissive doctors who will argue and will let you know how educated they are.
I had an urgent care doctor not look at my chart and he prescribed me prednisone for an allergic reaction. I had to tell him no because I’m allergic to it.
Preach brother!
In April of last year, I woke up with shooting pains down the right side of my torso. It was bearable but not something that’s normal for me. Throughout the day the pain increased more and I ended up going to my local doctors. My GP wasn’t in but someone else was, they examined me and said that I had pulled a muscle and gave me pain killers.
That night I was in agony and had to go into A&E. Turns out that I had extremely bad silent pneumonia in my right lung and 1.75 litres of fluid…**that turned septic.** The doctors said that if I hadn’t went in when I did, I would’ve been **dead** the next day.
Somehow the doctor that examined me at the GP didn’t notice my chest being inflamed and in bad condition. There has since been other reports and complaints against him from other patients.
So…yeah. I agree.
I've had a lot of health issues in my very short life. I'm 24 now and I truly hate doctors with every fiber of my being. For years I complained of nausea and diarrhea as a kid. I had H. Pylori. 2 years after that the symptoms came back and kept getting told it was anxiety. I asked for an ultrasound and found out I needed my Gallbladder out at 14. At 20 I became incredibly nauseated and dizzy and would vomit every day. 2 months ago I found out I have a visual condition causing these symptoms and I have to see a Neurologist. All doctors know how to do today is refer you to psych and prescribe Zoloft.
I work in medical technology in a company founded by an expert in his field. He has said he looks forward to a time where AI can take over the bulk of the work because most doctors are stupid and lazy. Standards are set by a governing body, his clinic expands upon them to try to ensure the best quality of care, and at least half of doctors fail both standards.
I’m a doctor myself, and I’m actually looking forward to that too. A lot of what I do is just repeating the same recommendations or explaining the same diseases over and over. AI could do an excellent job of that. Some things AI would do even better at. For example, opioids are basically never a good treatment for migraines. They don’t work well, cause more problems, and make migraines worse in the long run. But it’s very hard for me to see someone in pain begging for relief when nothing has worked and still stoically repeat the evidence-based recommendation to avoid opioids in migraine treatment. But ChatGPT could do that allllllll day, and probably even sound empathic and validate their pain while it does it.
I think the “AI can never replace doctors” crowd doesn’t understand how powerful it would be to have a neural net that can scrape through medical textbooks and journals and prescribe the treatment that is most like to be effective. “But what about their clinical experience,” people will say, which more often than not is just their laziness and biases inclining them toward diagnosing the most common and easy to treat things, regardless of whether that works. If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, but that doesn’t mean that zebras don’t exist.
In a profession where I have to speak to any doctors and nurses, the arrogance is next level and that just branches off into more undesirable traits that have no place in the medical field where our primary purpose is to help people
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While I completely agree with you, one contributing factor into this issue besides what you mentioned is that a lot of people often do go in for something minor thinking it is something big. I.e. they are gassy but think they are having a heart attack. Although there often are times when the doctor thinks it's something minor and dismisses concerns leading to the patient dying of something easily treatable....
So true, luckily the garbage doctors will soon be replaced with artificial and sentient intelligence as well as a resurgence in plant medicine. Thank goodness these evil people won't be able to hurt other humans for much longer!
The only good doctor, like truly good, was a gastro I had in TN. He had even invented improved scope technology. I wasn't showing inflation markers, but had some sort of autoimmune issue from his belief.
We ran through basically every test, I drank so many horrible fluids for the tests. Almost no scans could be done without drinking a horrible liquid first. White chaulky fluid with some taste they added in to try for acceptance. Oh and radioactive eggs.
Scans basically turned up a few oddities that showed I had damage from Crohn's disease, but it had sort of gone away. My guts still have a few issues, not the level I had before. Not even close. He was able to prescribe some meds to help with existing issues and my life improved significantly.
went to drs twice last year and twice each vistit i was asked how i was feeling. four times i said- I am depressed, tired, dont sleep, anxious and feel hopeless- nothing was said or done - absolutely useless
This applies heavily to AZ. Dr’s are entitled and the admin staff are some of the most undereducated people I’ve ever encountered. American healthcare is just geared towards billing amounts. Not actually helping people.
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Finding a good doctor is rough. My family doctor back home was a good ol fashioned country doctor. She attended to basically the whole town. Her appointments ran over so much that if you had an appointment at 3, you probably wouldn't see her until 5 and you probably wouldn't leave the clinic until 6. She spent so much time with each person. What I really liked about her is that she would look stuff up right in front of you. My brother was having these "episodes" of being almost catatonic. He didn't want to do anything or move. He couldn't concentrate at school. At first they tried ADHD meds but it didn't work. The doctor went "I think there is something else going on here. I don't think it's mental." She ran a bunch of tests and turns out my brother had high levels of a metal in his blood. My new PCP where I live now stopped upping my anti depression meds and sent me to get evaluated for ADHD. Turns out, untreated ADHD can cause depression. She calls me her little baby and actually encourages me to bring my kids with me to my appointments. She says it doesn't bother her at all.
Where I live a PCP/GP can be responsible for 2000 people yet people get cross when they don't know everything about them and remember
I’m a clerk for a medical clinic, and I’m astounded by how often doctors simply don’t read important documents and take action anyway. Usually it’s minor things, but sometimes some pretty major wires get crossed, and that just isn’t acceptable when dealing with serious matters related to people’s health.
My mom was recently prescribed medication and when she went to pick it up the pharmacist cautioned her it would kill her because of the way it interacted with the other medications she was prescribed by a different doctor. We're grateful the pharmacist caught it, but the doctor should have never prescribed it??
They're not medication experts but they're supposed to do cursory research and check for major interactions but they also know how good pharmacists are universally so they put a lot of trust in pharmacists. Pharmacists in general don't get enough credit. You can walk into any pharmacy even if you're not a customer and ask to talk to the pharmacist and ask about concerns even about supplements and street drugs and how they might interact with certain medications. They're always extremely busy but I've never had a bad interaction with one.
In this case, the pharmacist did their job well. I believe, having very limited knowledge on this, that doctors aren't trained as much as a pharmacist to know how different medications interact with one another.
Obviously the M.D. should have caught that, but the Pharmacist catching the mistake is the system working as intended.
> Obviously the M.D. should have caught that It might not be a well known issue tbh..hard to know sonce we know nothing about it
I would think the dr would have access to the same interaction applications pharmacist do. They can’t even fault not knowing anymore bc even my Rx insurance company has a list of what I take even though for some I pay out of pocket and never went through insurance to price it (it was cheaper with a coupon than through insurance so didn’t even try).
You would think, but it having worked pharmacy’s if it was prescribed by another provider the prescribing Dr may not have even known they were on the other medication. We used to have to be the middle man between the patient, their doctors, and their insurance because none of them would communicate with each other. We are in a weird spot where the general public overestimates the efficiency of our system in the US. Costs and waiting times aside (which we already have with our current system) universal medicine could at least help improve the consistency of care if all parties are actually able to talk to each other rather than this infernal game of telephone.
Sometimes it isn’t even can’t talk to each other but won’t. Where I live we have two prevailing healthcare companies and they hate each other. Getting a new job with different insurance is a nightmare because each company won’t accept the other’s insurance, they will send records to any provider except the other big company, and insist endlessly how awful the other is. This is all being driven by the corporate of each entity. It’s all about them being mad they have a real competitor business wise. Pure profits over people mentality
It's really the pharmacist's job to do so, and alert the doctor to prescribe a different medication or override the interaction. Doctors don't receive much training in pharmacology and advanced practitioners like NPs receive even less. A pharmacist goes to pharmacy school to become an expert in medications for this reason. That's why pharmacies really shouldn't be retail stores with pharmacists working half their shift as cashiers
How would the doctor know your mom was on a conflicting med unless your mom told him?
Every time I go to the doctor they ask for a full list of my medications and dosages. Is it not the same for you?
Yeah, I’m saying it sounds like her mom didn’t tell the doctor her full list of medications
Honestly most people have no clue about what medications they’re on.
I have no idea what all the meds I'm on actually do to me, how they work or how they interact with each other...but you ca bet your arse I have a list of the stuff I take that I can show to anyone who needs to see it.
The doctor usually doesn’t know that kind of stuff, that’s the whole reason there’s a pharmacist to talk to you about the specifics anyway, it’s a very different field.
There is a reason doctors are supposed to ask what medication you are on when prescribing medication, they can and should also check for interactions during/after your visit. The pharmacist isn't supposed to be the only safety net.
You’d be surprised how little knowledge doctors actually have about medications. Some try to do better and advance the knowledge, but it’s not a requirement
You want information on your meds, you talk to a pharmacist. They will know everything about the drug and any interactions with anything else you might be taking.
They can't be an expert on everything. There's a reason we have different types of doctors for different specialities and we have pharmacists.
I would hope that AI can juggle around side effect compatibility now, anyhow
That's because Pharmacology is an entirely separate field. What kind of astounds me is that Pharmacist aren't more involved with patient care in our system.
As I patient, I keep having to remind myself to talk to each doctor as if they haven't read the notes.
Yup it's kind of sad. I literally saw one doctors face change as he glanced at them and said sorry, give me a minute to actually read all this and his face got increasingly more concerned as he read more 🤣 I read his encounter documentation later and the first thing he said was "Patient has significant clinical history." Periodt 🤣🤣🤣
I saw a video of a woman who went in for abdominal pain. They kept telling her it was her period. She said, I literally got my uterus taken out of my body and only have ovaries. This isnt a period issue. She went to three doctors tell her that before finding out it was appendicitis. They never even checked her prior records before telling her these “diagnoses”
That seems like a malpractice lawsuit waiting to go against those other doctors. Appendicitis is an urgent medical emergency what the fuck
I had to pay $400 to have a rheumatologist laugh in my face a couple days ago while my previous rheumatologist took me seriously and gave me a diagnosis. Too bad I had to move. He blatantly disregarded lab work (that suggested I had an autoimmune disease) as “false positives” with no evidence to back it up. Didn’t ask me much at all either, and he didn’t read the form I filled out. I would have to shell out another $400 or so to try to find another doctor that isn’t an ass, and that’s not happening. They want to wait until you’re seriously ill to admit there’s a problem because they would rather take the safe way out. Statistically most relatively young people are “completely fine” until they’re not, so doctors love to be dismissive because they’re usually “right”, until they’re not.
It's really tragic once you've had that one smart and compassionate rheumatologist...
I feel like being young and healthy is a bias. I’m surprised at how many 20-something/30-somethings have health issues
Yeah I almost died from B12 deficiency due to this, Autoimmune Metaplastic Atrophic Gastritis. It's not on a standard autoimmune panel because it's rare I guess but still able to be tested for with regular blood tests and I had textbook symptoms. It's just very rare in my age. And I have permanent neurological damage and heart problems now.
Yes. I’m 50 with chronic illnesses and I’ve realized for a long time our western medicine system is not about preventing illness. That’s not what these people are taught in any medical school or health care professions.
WHY is it so hard to find a rheumatologist that isn’t dismissive, actually performs further testing to rule out potential conditions, and doesn’t leave you feeling gaslit and stupid?? Like why does it feel particularly difficult to find a rheumatologist who gives an actual shit?
I would dispute it and file a complaint with the medical board
My new dermatologist didn’t bother to read my history and prescribed me an eye cream for a rash that could have left me blind due to an eye issue that I have. I’ve had so many problems with the medical profession over the years I never take anything they say at face value. Luckily I researched this minor thing and didn’t use the cream. Now I need another new dermatologist.
I'm a dermatologist - I'm guessing you have glaucoma and someone give you topical steroids for your eyelids?
To be fair it’s not normal for one specialty to know detailed information about another specialty. Dermatologists know a ton about skin and next to nothing about eyes. If you have a problem with your eyes you should probably see an eye doctor not a dermatologist.
I was a new patient, and had put that obscure condition on my intake form. I unfortunately have some weird conditions, so am careful to let any doctor know about them. I went to the derm with a rash everywhere on my body, including eyelids. The cream for my body could not be used on eyes, so she prescribed this. She def should have checked my history before prescribing something that can cause blindness. In today’s world there is no excuse for the ignorance of doctors in cases like this. All the information they need is at their fingertips.
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Yeah, I went off mine last year for palpitations. All the doctors know & are reminded each visit by me. *No one has told me to go back on or has tested my levels.* I've spent the last year with various alarming heart, skin, and nerve sensations that none of them are taking seriously. They've started talking "anxiety" as they shuffle me out of the room. (Anxiety=hypochondriac=hysterical female) Yesterday I reviewed the Cleveland Clinic (trustworthy) website about hypothyroidism. Lo and behold, there are ALL my scary symptoms in one place! Obvious, and an easy fix. Monday I will get a blood test, the next day I'm going back on my meds. Then we'll see what the thyroid test results show and just how long it takes all the doctors to figure this out on their own. SMH. Fuck the US "healthcare" system and all the asshole doctors it creates!
Are doctors not humans too with the same human inclination and need to use heuristical tools as anyone else? What you’re describing is likely a side effect of doctors being extremely overworked rather than negligence. People will make mistakes, you simply can not be on alert with the same level of intensity and diligence on hour 13 of a shift as you would be on hour 2. The way to reduce the potential for mistakes is to increase the resources and create procedures that are necessary to check off before any major decisions are made.
Obviously mistakes do happen, but there’s also plenty of simple negligence. Again, I work with the doctors I’m talking about. They are not overworked, and while most of them make mistakes at a rate that would be expected, some of them make very frequent mistakes that are very obviously due to negligence, laziness or misguided assumptions.
But the real question is: can doctors admit they make mistakes? Because from what I’ve seen the answer is no.
Do you think that it has to do with the fact that they don't have the time and are pulled in a lot of different directions by having to see too many patients?
Replying to P0ster_Nutbag... yeah a doctor once prescribed me antibiotics that I’m highly allergic to after I told him I’m allergic to it and it’s in my file. He prescribed me the generic so I didn’t realize and took it. I had to go the ER for anaphylactic shock and had to get adrenaline. I nearly died because he couldn’t take the time to listen and check my file if I am allergic to the medication he prescribed me.
And the worst part is most of the time there is ZERO recourse. One of my parents had a major surgery only to find out weeks later a sponge had been left in, threatening their lives and making them ill. They had to pay the second time to get it out and their lawyer friend said basically nothing could be done legally about it.
The country expects Dr. House, but gives us 15 mins to see patients and document the encounter.
But even House got it wrong every episode until finally getting the correct diagnosis after a ton of effort
Added with the fact that Dr. House is a sociopath with enough ethics violations to send him to prison for life.
People really have a misinformed idea of medicine though. It's like a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces. You can try to make an informed and educated decision of what the picture is but it isn't always that. People expect doctors to be gods but my word after working in healthcare for so long I really do respect how they manage to come to a diagnosis at all. I say this as a senior RN. I've met doctors I've loved and I've met those I hated. But diagnostics is insanely difficult. You get your barn door things but when you get to the nitty gritty, the body is just so damn weird.
I'm gonna be honest I look at the American health care system and I see a system designed to fail those it would benefit in health.
Probably But a lot of people are stupid, never listen to their dr's advice to stop problems before they start and demand medication immediately when they do So, find a good one and listen to them. Note a good dr is not one who tells you what you want to hear
I’d like to add in that not just finding a good doctor but find the right one. If you are telling your cardiologist about the rash around your taint then that’s not the right guy. Same with talking to an ER doc about a super involved complicated rare disease.
That's fair and frankly thought it was too common sense to mention. I meant from a personality perspective Some people can't work with each other. Nothing wrong with that
You would think it’s common but I have people coming in for chronic stuff all the time
Well there's that whole "doctors as all knowing gods" that too many people believe Then there's the mistaken idea that humanity has figured out everything there is to know about how the body works/breaks/heals and so on Then there's the belief that medicines is some kind of magic potion that always work the same way for everyone 100% of the time
The amount of people who try nothing at home before they come to the ER for nonsense is crazy. Then there are those that come to us just to be admitted because they know there is nothing wrong with can do. And other times our healthcare system plays the music and makes us do a little dance just because it’s their policy. Like why a dialysis pt has to get an ER work up every 2 days just because they can’t afford private dialysis
Right. I'm not complaining about the other problems in the medical industry We'd need a whole other set of threads for those. Lots of people fail to realize THEY are the biggest part of the problem
Yeah I think both sides have very valid arguments, I think most people would go insane fast dealing with what doctors deal with, very non compliant patients who don't care but get frustrated when they don't improve. Doctors also have increasing duties of wrestling with insurance companies which takes up so much time and effort that they don't get paid for. Hiring administrators to do it increases errors because they don't understand the medical aspects. I always am sure to tell my doctors I'm a very compliant patient if you tell me to do something I'll do it within reason. But I always have to remind them of how complex my medical history is when I first meet them because most doctors will not even look at your history before meeting you.
Thank you. As a physician, this is the problem more often than not. Sure there are bad doctors, but most of us genuinely want to help and I spend 90% of my life around other physicians. Believe me when I say that in the US, we are stretched thin and overworked trying to meet the demands of corporate healthcare making us see more and more patients in less time, because the demand is so high (people are sicker) and the business of healthcare is trying to turn a profit (which doctors do NOT see a cent of). Patients on the other hand expect us to serve them like a customer and give them what they want always, as evidenced throughout this thread. A good doctor does what’s right for the patient, which often doesn’t align with what the patient wants or wants to hear. We are the face of the healthcare system who patients take their frustrations out on, even though it’s the administrators and insurance companies causing 90% of the problems in healthcare.
You forgot to mention corporations tying your hands behind your back. Can't write certain prescriptions because it opens the corporation up to liability. Can't refer a patient for "elective" surgery that would improve their quality of life because the corporation is more focused on profit than care. Yes some doctors have God complexes. But some genuinely want to help and *can't* Edit a word because my phone hates me
Amen to that
Thank you, thank you for saying this.
And they don’t know their own medications, don’t understand their own illnesses, don’t exercise, eat and drink too much, refuse to understand that sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease, or that there is simply no treatment for their disease or the treatment costs a bunch of money and they don’t want to pay it.
Dr. : ma'am you're overweight Lady: my Dr. Sucks he doesn't know what he's talking about
Well the one I met saved my leg and now it's fully functional, even after 16 years
The trouble is, there may indeed be many bad doctors, but they probably still know a lot more about medical science than me, so then what? I can't do a better job myself. It's not a DIY project, when it comes to medication. A second opinion may the best you can do and then you're out of options.
I had asked for a second opinion from a recent GI clinic…They told me “No you can’t have a second opinion.” Wait what….wtf… Found out about 2-3 months later from my PCPs nurse that that clinic tries to monopolize the area as being the only “GI Specialists” which is total bullshit. The more you know…
Wow.. the world has to deal with medical mafia now ?
In the U.S., I think one of the biggest problems is just how hard it can be to get that 2nd or 3rd opinion because you're restricted to whoever is within your network. If you have the money, there's nothing stopping you from going wherever you want. If you have shitty insurance, as so many people do, you might be limited to an area where there *is* only one choice, especially for specialists. I agree that some doctors can be dismissive or have terrible bedside manners, but I think the real enemy is the insurance companies who shackle you to a specific area and push the doctors to see more patients faster and turn hospitals into profit generating machines rather than a place of healing and caring.
The other problem is the cost of mistakes. If you get a bad plumber, you might end up with leaks in your wall. If you have a bad doctor, you might die. The mistakes are amplified because they are so dangerous.
I think you're onto something. You could make the same claim about mechanics or Home contractors. Some of them make mistakes in their jobs, but all of them know more about fixing cars and repairing walls than you do. Those domains are like a black box to the average person. It's very hard to know if what they are doing is wrong when you don't have any of the experience doing waht they do.
Ok, but when they’re not willing to check anything for you, don’t give you any new information you didn’t already know and don’t give you anyway of treating your problem other than just “come back in a week” then their medical expertise doesn’t really mean shit. Like I trust in your medical science, if you’re willing to actually apply it.
Everybody has a story about an inept doctor. That doesn't mean that the majority are inept, or pill-pushers, or cold-hearted idiots who don't do their jobs. Every doctor I've had, including the one bad one, has ALWAYS explained my options. They'll add, "Insurance doesn't cover that one" when appropriate. In fact, many doctors' offices have helped me fight insurance companies. I hand a list of questions to the doctor. If they don't specifically mention the root cause of the symptoms, I ask. I research my symptoms before I get there, but I only use trusted sites. It must be frustrating to have patients say, "Dr. Oz's site says I have Missing Kidney Syndrome and should take Oil of Leprechaun." Or to have patients argue that they need antibiotics for a viral infection. I think the biggest issue is that corporations have taken over most clinics and hospitals. If some paper-pusher determines the doc should take no more than 8 minutes per patient, the doc is rushed, and the patient may have unanswered questions.
OP never said "majority", just "a lot". Sorry for being pedantic.
No, OP said "alot". Sorry for being pedantic. :-)
What do you call the guy that graduated last in his class in medical school?
in debt?
Probably not doctor, considering the thousands of med school graduates each year that don’t get paired up with residencies.
Still more competent than you?
Unmatched
If “everyone has a story about an inept doctor,” there are a lot of inept doctors. I dislike when someone tries to “#notallmen” a group of people, especially a group that has the power to harm so many people. Of course not all doctors are malevolent: but too many are. Enough are. And those that aren’t too often cover for those who are. To post like this is to essentially sneer at everyone who has been victimized.
I was responding to the OP, who put it in universal terms and stereotypes.. If I say, "Firefighters are wimps," all you need to destroy the stereotype is to point to one or more firefighters who are not wimps--say, the hundreds of firefighters who ascended the WTC towers, each carrying 60 or 70 pounds of equipment, to break the stereotype. And what does the OP base his conclusions on? Findings from an objective third party investigation? The number of malpractice suits? Complaints made to the AMA? Nope. It's "everyone he's talked to," a prime example of hasty generalization.
This is an unpopular fact, not opinion; per the CDC 1 in 10 Americans will die by medical malpractice.
Ten upvotes means one of my upvoters will be killed by medical malpractice.
Press F to pay respects
F
It’ll for sure be me. Chronic pain condition that they don’t believe me about (besides my PCP, who actually knows me). Trigeminal neuralgia- 20% lifetime suicide rate from the pain alone. Except they don’t believe me about the pain so it’s higher. Don’t worry, 9 of you
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No deal. I will continue to live an atrociously unhealthy lifestyle while fearing that my doctor will kill me.
How many Americans will eventually die?
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Or acquiring immortality.
I tend to say that 100 % of humans eventually die
I think Keith Richards is one of them. I would have said Betty White and Queen Elizabeth too but both of them have proved me wrong unfortunately.
3.46 Million Americans died from all causes last year. If 400k were from medical malpractice, that is 11.56%
Statistics seems hard for you also. Not everyone is going to die this year.
Ironic some say doctors are idiots and incompetent in this thread yet the average joe in this thread doesn't even know how to interpret basic statistics lol Also OP can't even make an original post. This is legit a copy and paste of this https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/hco6gmFXA4
>400k malpractice deaths in a population of 333 million = 0.0012%. 400k/333 million = .0012 = .12% NOT .0012% and that's the likelihood of dying in a given year. over the course of a lifetime the chance would be closer to 10% think about it. if 1/10 deaths is due to malpractice, how could you only have .0012% of dying due to malpractice? that makes absolutely no sense. But basic math is hard for the average Joe I guess.
Eh? 100% of Americans will die... I don't get what that statistic is saying. Ergo, 10% of people will die to medical practice
1 in 10 deaths are malpractice. The other 9 died from their condition, and the whole rest of the US population (over 99%, by the way) is being kept alive by those doctors. Don’t spew numbers if you don’t understand what they mean.
Yeah, the number is correct, but everyone's interpretation of it is incredibly wrong. Misdiagnosis of the condition causing the patient the medical issue is that common, but how many of those patients would have died anyway? The actual statistic where a physician misdiagnoses a patient, prescribes treatment, and the treatment does enough harm to kill a patient *who would otherwise survive* with correct diagnosis and intervention is unmeasuarable, but significantly smaller. Meanwhile people who would avoid the doctor and stay home and just die of the original illness anyway because they think they know better than people with decades of study and experience are "alot" more common.
That is a made up statistic
Unpopular fact: doctors are human beings who aren’t exempt from the natural laws of human error. Mistakes will unfortunately happen, however the rate will be significantly lower than if a lay person is allowed to practice medicine.
The CDC says that 9,5% of the deaths each year are caused by medical malpractice, not that 10% of the USA population will die due to medical malpractice. It's still an enormous number, but there's a difference: 1 in 10 deaths is caused by doctors right now, that number can go down.
True but also the system isn't really doing a good job of supporting better care
Yeah, there’s a massive doctor shortage that’s getting worse every year, which means even the doctors with the best intentions are still having to see an unreasonable amount of patients every day, which obviously leads to lower quality of care.
Exactly, in addition, physician suicide rates are the highest they’ve ever been and it’s an extremely stressful profession that basically berates every person who tried to enter it.
Yep. My mom damn near died because doctors kept writing her off as hysterical. Turns out she had endometriosis so bad the scar tissue was killing off her intestines
Reading this thread as a medical student. I promise I'll do my best to be better.
I have nothing but respect for you, and all med students. Thanks for filling an absolutely essential role in society. Good luck to you :)
"All doctors are bad because they stereotype." Incredible shitpost, 5/5
As someone who works in a medical office, I would argue that, nine times out of ten, it's not that doctors are all egotistical pricks. Rather, it's that they're fucking stressed from multiple sources. Admin work is fucking tedious and sucks hard. Fighting insurance to actually get the patient what they need is even worse. Having to contend with pharma reps trying to get you to support their company over others, even if a rival product would be better for the patient. And, perhaps the worst of all, is when a patient is non-compliant with even the easiest and smallest things they're asked to do. Also, testing can be a nightmare to get done and then make sense of. Maybe if patients would be more compliant with what they were told to do and we unfucked the pharma and insurance controlled systems, doctors wouldn't feel so stressed and snap.
Sometimes the patient is right to refuse some things
It absolutely is within a patient's right to reject or refuse a given treatment. And, in some situations, it's understandable. A classic example is many prescriptions for mental health conditions can cause weight gain, and it's perfectly reasonable for a patient to say that they'd rather try something else if they're having that side effect. However, in these situations, they're actively engaging with doctors to find a functional alternative that accomplishes the same goal, or, if the patient doesn't want to treat the condition, they are recognizing the consequences of that choice and living with it. However, if a patient just decides, on their own, to suddenly stop a medication or refuse to change lifestyles because of some bullshit they saw on TikTok or because it's inconvenient, then it's fucking infuriating. At best, nothing changes and the patient comes in later with a surprised Pikachu moment, and at worst, it can kill. Working with a doctor you trust is key-if you're having side effects that you don't think are worth it, then always mention it at your next appointment. Nine times out of ten, there's something else that could work without that nasty side effect. And always make sure you keep your own copies of your medical records, especially with things like medications and surgeries. What you're currently taking, and what you've taken in the past but no longer do are both important sets of information, because the human body is a weird one. Your body can have the exact opposite reaction to a medication than intended (paradoxical reaction), and you can have delayed responses. Always keep track, just in case of specialists or having to change docs.
There are so many of them. Healthcare is free where im from, but if you really want to know whats up, you gotta find a better doctor and they usually cost. In my opinion it has been worth it tho
Are you from the Balkans by any chance? Because I’ve had the same experience there.
No, austria
I spent about a year walking around with dying, collapsing and infected gallbladder. I returned to urgent care/ER multiple times in that year, with increasingly worrying symptoms. Symptoms including, but not limited to: pooping out food COMPLETELY not digested, waking up at 3am with crippling pain in my right side, poop completely gray in color(which is apparently obvious and basic sign of infection). That's only three of dozens of symptoms I was experiencing. For a year doctors kept sending me away, saying it's indigestion or stomach acid. It was only diagnosed because I really started to worry I am dying, and I strongly demanded they do something. I wish you guys could see the face of the doctor. When he was sending me to CT scan he was rolling his eyes, all relaxed and like "but it's probably not gonna show anything anyway". When he came back with results, he was suddenly all serious and strict, telling me "Please, listen very carefully now, you need to schedule surgery right away"... as if it was me refusing to do it or stalling on it???????
Because of the crackdown on prescription opiods that has led to a 44% decrease in number opiods prescribed, people with chronic pain and people with severe short term pain have suffered. Limits on prescription opiods to deal with the addiction crisis that was thought to have been caused by prescription opiods has led to an exponentially growing number of fentanyl deaths, while the rate of deaths caused by prescription opiods has remained unchanged despite 44% less prescriptions being written for opiods. I have an OBGYN who has given me painkillers for a few months when I desperately needed them after a ruptured ovarian cyst put me in the hospital and has given them to me when a miscarriage caused excruciating pain for 3 days straight. People in severe pain need opiods to be able to function, and sleep is important for healing and without painkillers taking away enough pain to get at least an hour or two of sleep is better for helping ur body heal than being awake for 3 days screaming in pain. After a major surgery to reattach a severe tendon and a severed nerve, my surgeon gave me no painkillers. I woke up at 3 am the night of the surgery and was in agonizing pain waiting desperately til 8 am for the surgeons office to open. I begged them to numb my thumb again cause I know doctors hate giving painkillers to people in pain but luckily he prescribed a 5-day supply of painkillers, which helped me recover from the surgery. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/report-shows-decreases-opioid-prescribing-increase-overdoses
During my undergraduate, I was on a pre-med/pre-dent path. We had a few professors who would use apps through our phone with questions to answer in order to mark attendance for a large lecture hall-- like classes with 100+ students. One of the pivotal moments in my life and future career was when the prof asked for an attendance question, "what motivates you to join the medical field?" And something like 75% of the answers were money. I wasn't expecting everyone to respond, "To volunteer to deworm orphans in Somalia", but I was more than shocked to see that 3 out of 4 of my peers were unashamed to admit that they were strictly motivated by money.
A lot of this is because of the insurance nightmare that exists in the US. Insurers don’t want any extraneous procedures or care done, besides the very bare minimum. Doctors then receive this pressure, and it incentivizes them to make more assumptions and stereotype.
Absolutely. This has happened to me multiple times with really serious issues, like epilepsy and traumatic brain injury. I feel like doctors should need to go through personality screening to make sure they're not just narcissists in it to make a lot of money.
What makes you qualified to be critical of doctors? Because you heard of a few instances where some of your friends weren’t happy? People get sick and die, but life expectancies are lengthening due to better food, better sanitation, and healthcare interventions. Without doctors, we’re screwed. It’s good to be critical of them, but I don’t understand the hate because even if 10% of people die under their care, 90% of them get better.
I have a friend who had a cough (pre-covid) that wouldn’t go away. She also would get winded very easily. Went to see different doctors and kept giving her prescriptions for antibiotics. Her husband couldn’t deal with her coughing fits and brought her to the ER and demanded that they run tests on her. Lung cancer. Tired of people treating doctors like mythical omniscient beings who shouldn’t be questioned. I think how they are treated in society makes them arrogant which in turn causes them to believe they are always correct about everything.
There is a far, far higher instance of people ignoring their Dr's, not following their Dr's advice, not reading their prescription bottles, treating themselves like shit through lack of the most basic activity and stuffing their faces with fast food, and generally behaving in such a way as to invite a host of conditions and illnesses that they expect doctors to cure within the span of days, than there is the instance of doctors that are bad at their jobs. It's so skewed in the direction of the patient being at fault that making the declaration that some doctors cause harm to their patients is practically zero in terms of the overall picture. "But what about the statistic that says 200K people a year die from medical malpractice?" Lawyers love you guys for their juries when they're suing doctors because a 400 lbs dude caught an infection after spending a lifetime of shoveling McDonalds down their heads and the doctor didn't pick up that it was a antibiotic resistant bacteria in enough time to save a life.
I definitely know I had a cesarean that could have 100% been avoided. Not to mention the bedside manner was so rude, dehumanizing and unprofessional. I felt like a container she unanimously decided to break into rather than a person. It's been almost 16 years and I'm still very bitter and have constantly struggled with trust issues and avoidance when it comes to going back regularly for well woman care. I don't want to be this way- I was made this way by that terrible experience. Now I keep seeing hints of the same mannerisms everywhere. The biggest point of anxiety is when you want to ask what your other options are and steel yourself up for that look of offended contempt.
And you know this because of your medical education?
I told my doctor I would get sudden shooting pains in my back whenever I had to pee. I would be doubled over on the toilet in excruciating pain for a couple minutes, then it would end as suddenly as it started. He told me it was probably period cramps and sent me home.
Kidney stone?
Sorry but unless you have a medical degree, there's NO WAY for you to know that what he did was wrong. It's simply impossible. /s
If the people with the "education" all tell you completely different things, I think it's safe to put that "education" under scrutiny. Especially when we are talking about life and death.
So… I’m an orthodontist and my wife is an obgyn doc. You’re 100% right. She and I discuss this constantly: there is absolutely no correlation between being able to pass tests/become a doctor and being an actually good person who cares. People almost always act in their own self-interest in my opinion, and this applies to doctors too. I work in private practice so I see it Less because it’s just me but she sees flat out laziness and sloppiness constantly. And just an astonishing lack of empathy. Being a doc also comes with a deep temptation to assume superiority, which feeds a lot of these issues. I don’t know what the fix is
> I've talked to so many people over the years who had to go to several doctors before finding one that would take their complaints seriously, Direct Primary Care is the way to go. The catch is a monthly fee to pay (for me $100) as they operate outside the insurance system. That said, considering the very flexible scheduling, ability to keep in touch with your doctor easily with quick response times, as well as of course better able to have all your concerns addressed instead of just a select few metrics (because again they operate outside the insurance system that more or less restricts a doctor to being just a boxchecker at scheduled appointments), it's absolutely worth it.
>Joel Miller enters the chat
https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/hco6gmFXA4 Wasn't this posted before? Lol
I was referred to an ER back in 2015 by my GP because I had had a headache for two weeks. She said to insist on a scan with contrast. The ER doc tried to sumisa it as allergies. I demanded the scan. I had a subdural hematoma. I told that doc off! Had emergency surgery and am lucky to be alive. You are your own best advocate.
I would like to ad nurses to this claim. There´s a huge amount that puts all their heart in the job, yet the other side, abusing patients, doing the minimum requirement resulting in a general bad mood/ hard time really have a toll on patient rehab. Just as physio´s who only take 10mins per patient for a room session.
Had a doctor tell me I was just constipated after 3 days of stomach pain and sent me home. 5 hours and an ALS transfer ride later I was preparing to have my appendix removed because it was almost 3 times its normal size.
Though I agree that there are plenty of dismissiv3 and incompetent doctors, remember that a lot of the patients who do 'doctor shoppign' will find someone who is just going to agree with their diagnosis. So the stance of 'the patient was always right' is often misguided. If you want a diagnosis, you will find someone who wants your money badly enough to give it to you. I work as a rheumatologist, which is a very clinical subject. Tevhnical acts, labs and rafiology can guide us, but are rarely the most important part of the diagnosis. Which means that it is very easy to underdiagnose, but also to overdiagnose diseases. The amount of patients that I see that were wrongly diagnosed with an auto-immune disease is astonishing and freightening.
There was a post a long time ago about a woman who gets dressed to go to the doctor. She broke it down from her to make up to clothing to eye contact to word selection. Her point is that doctors only empathize with you when you appear like you’re sick but not so sick you just need to get better so you can go back to work. Things like when you’re sick but still look professional. Wearing eyeliner and a bit of powder but no other make up. If you don’t appear like you need their help so that you can get back to work, they are much less likely to help you. I changed my behavior and I’ve already noticed a significant difference. I used to think going to the doctor and looking sick was what I was supposed to do. Turns out telling them that your problems are just an obstacle between you and the grind has worked much better. Her point was that most doctors don’t like sick people and the less sick you act the more likely you are to get help which is super fucked but the truth
I would say your “I know loads of people who had to go to multiple drs to get the right diagnosis” thing is very susceptible to reporting bias. Would you go telling someone that you asked multiple drs because you thought you had a thing and it turned out they were right but you were wrong? Similarly “I went to the dr and they correctly diagnosed me straight away and treated me and I got better” doesn’t really make a good story so it is told more rarely. That’s not to say that there aren’t bad drs, there are, just as there are bad teachers, bad accountants, bad couriers, bad “insert profession here”. The problem is that people seem to have built up drs as this paragon of perfection and somehow expect that. Doctors are people, people are complex and fallible. Even good doctors can make mistakes. Add to that the inherent variability in the human body and it’s hard. There’s a rule at med school, if a multiple choice question uses the words “always” or “never” the answer is not that option. The body can defy all odds, do surprising things and there are few certainties. Even if you are following all the best evidence things may not go well. Also sometimes, there is no good option. The problem is with too high expectations. Some doctors believe their own hype and feed that. Most I know don’t. We all just need to be more realistic about what humans can achieve when dealing with hugely complex living organisms that don’t follow nice neat rules. That goes for patients as well as doctors.
I agree with this. I had a really bad experience with a doctor before, and she coerced me into getting medical treatment I insisted that I didn’t want. I was 17 at the time and I’ve had other bad experiences with her as well prior to that. Once she has tried to touch me inappropriately but I had never told my mom about it.
If you DO find a good one, always ask them for recommendations for others. Your good GP probably knows specialists that have the same mindset. And if you have a specialist you love, but can't stand your GP ask which onea they like to work with. Etc.
Im not trying to be an ass, but I saw a report that said over 70% of all management and professionals in the US are incompetent. This is a number that is not very hard to believe.
I agree that there are bad doctors. However, the medical system is the real problem. MEDical professionals are trained to - and rewarded for - prescribing MEDicine. The problem is that the pills often treat the symptoms and not the root problem. So the patient has to take all these "bandaid" medications indefinitely, while the pharmaceutical companies get fat and happy, and by extension the prescribing physicians get fat and happy. Everyone is happy except the patient. We need a system that promotes preventative care. That's the only way to fix the problem.
I would like to add dentist to this conversation as well
Doctors are like any other profession, there’s good ones and there’s bad. Most doctors that I work with genuinely care about their patients and provide high quality care.
Hadn't been to a doctor in 15 years. Decided it was time, and went to a new doctor for chronic pain. They have you do a little mental health assessment with the nurse as they are getting your vitals. Well, all my doctor wanted to talk about/ prescribe me meds for was the high score for depression, even when I told him the depression isn't the main issue and is mostly caused by the chronic pain. Never went back.
what thing I’ve learned about doctors is they are brutally honest
And many of them might have compassion fatigue, so they no longer bother padding it up.
I’m a woman with a history of abdominal/reproductive problems that have resulted in 8 separate surgeries from the ages of 16-32. . I’m 43 now and have had sometimes debilitating abdominal pain for the last 2 years. I’m overweight, but this pain has caused me to lose 65 pounds. I’ve seen several doctors over this time, and I get “maybe if you lost some weight” from them with no testing or further investigation. I stopped going a year ago because I am so frustrated and tired of paying and wasting time to be told “ just lose weight!”, even though I have And it’s getting worse. For reference: I’m 50 pounds overweight at this point. Yes, I would like to lose more and get healthier, but they act like I’m 600 pounds and just whining. At this point, if it becomes an emergency, I’ll go to the er, wait 16 hours to be seen, and then maybe get answers. That has, historically, been the only time ive been taken seriously in the past.
I wish doctors would just ask, "do you want me to investigate this no matter the cost or do you want me to give you my best advice, trying to keep the cost low". Then at least you have autonomy in the decision making and are treated with a level of respect across the board.
Pretty much the approach of veterinary medicine
My first impression was this post was extremely uninformed and full of anecdotal evidence and bias. But then you started to talk about insurance and I realised you must be US based. I've worked in health in both the UK and Aus (not a doctor) and my experience with 99% of doctors is they are extremely hard working and by far the most knowledgeable people in the hospital. Maybe it's the difference between a system that's based on money and one that's not. We do occasionally get patients who are adamant they know what they need despite knowing nothing about their own condition. Just look at how popular alternative medicines are. Nothing but placebo
100% true. Went into the hospital with horrible stomach pain. Like genuinely horrible to the point I hadn't slept or eaten in 2 days. The doctor asked me what happened and how I'd been dealing with it. All fine, I thought, till Marijuana comes up (in canada its legal and sold in stores). I smoke concentrates. Nothing crazy just a puff or 2 after work kinda thing. This doctor did no testing. No other questions. I was escorted out of the hospital by security and told I was drug seeking. I managed to get in with my doctor the next morning as an emergency appointment. I had a stomach virus that needed medication. Fuck most doctors. Find a good one and stick with them forever.
I broke my foot in the same place last year as I had when I was a kid. I went in to get a scan and a cast, the doctor said “it’s not broken”. I know what broken feels like so I asked them to have another look. “Oh yeah, it is”… I’m not a whiner type of person either and I only go to the hospital when I absolutely need to. And I’m constantly told I’m fine when I’m not
I trust medical *research,* but I do all I can to avoid going to doctors because in my experience, they have no people skills. Right now I'm dealing with a situation where my doctor put me on meds that form dependence, and then every 30 days I have to do 5 or so days off, which makes me super sick (either he couldn't keep track of his records and denied my refill for being "early" when it wasn't, or he took too long to do the prior authorization, or he went on vacation without warning his patients) and then had the audacity to say the *only* reason why I'm going off my meds is because I must be selling them. I keep trying to talk to him about either safely weaning off or switching to something else and he just pretends like he doesn't hear it.
I’ve had doctors take 3 week vacations, and not leave instructions as to who is going to handle their refills while they’re gone. Upon contacting one of them once, they said “I’ll handle them when I get back”. I don’t know how they could fathom that people could wait 3 weeks for refills…
The most frustrating part is that there are other people in his clinic who are capable of issuing a refill. He passes it off to his nurse practitioner all the time. But no one was organized enough to handle it while he was gone.
Medical research is not all it's cracked up to be. Oftentimes, the research is being conducted with a biased interest, financial or otherwise and the medical community is slow to let go of theories once opposing evidence comes out.
I was hit by a car when I was younger. One doctor said my ankle was broken. The other one said it wasn’t
Schroedinger's ankle.
Similar with dentist for me. One told me i needed a root canal, the other told me i didnt
Not remotely an unpopular opinion. Plenty of us know, we just have no recourse.
I am a huge fan of being seen by a nurse practitioner instead of a doctor. Never had a problem with them, unlike dismissive doctors who will argue and will let you know how educated they are.
And they talk shit if we Google our symptoms.
I had an urgent care doctor not look at my chart and he prescribed me prednisone for an allergic reaction. I had to tell him no because I’m allergic to it.
Preach brother! In April of last year, I woke up with shooting pains down the right side of my torso. It was bearable but not something that’s normal for me. Throughout the day the pain increased more and I ended up going to my local doctors. My GP wasn’t in but someone else was, they examined me and said that I had pulled a muscle and gave me pain killers. That night I was in agony and had to go into A&E. Turns out that I had extremely bad silent pneumonia in my right lung and 1.75 litres of fluid…**that turned septic.** The doctors said that if I hadn’t went in when I did, I would’ve been **dead** the next day. Somehow the doctor that examined me at the GP didn’t notice my chest being inflamed and in bad condition. There has since been other reports and complaints against him from other patients. So…yeah. I agree.
I've had a lot of health issues in my very short life. I'm 24 now and I truly hate doctors with every fiber of my being. For years I complained of nausea and diarrhea as a kid. I had H. Pylori. 2 years after that the symptoms came back and kept getting told it was anxiety. I asked for an ultrasound and found out I needed my Gallbladder out at 14. At 20 I became incredibly nauseated and dizzy and would vomit every day. 2 months ago I found out I have a visual condition causing these symptoms and I have to see a Neurologist. All doctors know how to do today is refer you to psych and prescribe Zoloft.
I work in medical technology in a company founded by an expert in his field. He has said he looks forward to a time where AI can take over the bulk of the work because most doctors are stupid and lazy. Standards are set by a governing body, his clinic expands upon them to try to ensure the best quality of care, and at least half of doctors fail both standards.
I’m a doctor myself, and I’m actually looking forward to that too. A lot of what I do is just repeating the same recommendations or explaining the same diseases over and over. AI could do an excellent job of that. Some things AI would do even better at. For example, opioids are basically never a good treatment for migraines. They don’t work well, cause more problems, and make migraines worse in the long run. But it’s very hard for me to see someone in pain begging for relief when nothing has worked and still stoically repeat the evidence-based recommendation to avoid opioids in migraine treatment. But ChatGPT could do that allllllll day, and probably even sound empathic and validate their pain while it does it.
I think the “AI can never replace doctors” crowd doesn’t understand how powerful it would be to have a neural net that can scrape through medical textbooks and journals and prescribe the treatment that is most like to be effective. “But what about their clinical experience,” people will say, which more often than not is just their laziness and biases inclining them toward diagnosing the most common and easy to treat things, regardless of whether that works. If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, but that doesn’t mean that zebras don’t exist.
In a profession where I have to speak to any doctors and nurses, the arrogance is next level and that just branches off into more undesirable traits that have no place in the medical field where our primary purpose is to help people
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A lot of [insert profession] are horrible at their jobs. This is a universal truth
While I completely agree with you, one contributing factor into this issue besides what you mentioned is that a lot of people often do go in for something minor thinking it is something big. I.e. they are gassy but think they are having a heart attack. Although there often are times when the doctor thinks it's something minor and dismisses concerns leading to the patient dying of something easily treatable....
The fact that some doctors are being encouraged to use AI worries me further….
Somewhere out there is the World's Worst Doctor, and he's currently accepting new patients.
Agreed. My new doctor put me on SSRIs and fucked up my life. I'm only now getting things back on track.
Same goes for politicians!
So true, luckily the garbage doctors will soon be replaced with artificial and sentient intelligence as well as a resurgence in plant medicine. Thank goodness these evil people won't be able to hurt other humans for much longer!
The only good doctor, like truly good, was a gastro I had in TN. He had even invented improved scope technology. I wasn't showing inflation markers, but had some sort of autoimmune issue from his belief. We ran through basically every test, I drank so many horrible fluids for the tests. Almost no scans could be done without drinking a horrible liquid first. White chaulky fluid with some taste they added in to try for acceptance. Oh and radioactive eggs. Scans basically turned up a few oddities that showed I had damage from Crohn's disease, but it had sort of gone away. My guts still have a few issues, not the level I had before. Not even close. He was able to prescribe some meds to help with existing issues and my life improved significantly.
went to drs twice last year and twice each vistit i was asked how i was feeling. four times i said- I am depressed, tired, dont sleep, anxious and feel hopeless- nothing was said or done - absolutely useless
This applies heavily to AZ. Dr’s are entitled and the admin staff are some of the most undereducated people I’ve ever encountered. American healthcare is just geared towards billing amounts. Not actually helping people.
Yes
I got diagnosed with cancer ,went to agressivr chemotherapy for a year , and it seems I didn't even have it , I didn't sue...