Posted on 01/30/2007 10:05:04 AM PST by Caleb1411
Well, you have to add the 30 minutes you sit in the examining room before they walk in.
On tv, they get the diagnosis wrong 90% of the time until about 5 minutes before the show ends.
ping
Yep.
One of my favorite experiences with doctors is the totally blank stare. You tell them some sympton which is extremely important to you, maybe that your left arm fell off that morning. They register absolutely zero reaction and move on. It's not just callousness, it appears to be they dismiss your observation as having absolutely no medical significance and why did you bother them with it. My guess is they are trained to do this to avoid legal liability that might result if they acknowledge the symptom or that they have no idea what causes it.
"Doc, why does it burn when I..."
I've got an 8:15 a.m. Dr's appt tomorrow. Hope he doesn't misdiagnose my stopped up ear due to the bad cold or flu symptoms I have.
The process weeds out smart people in favor of those committed to "service". It weeds out students who had undergraduate records based on intellectual challange in favor of high grades in more rote memory subjects.
We had several students in law school that flunked out during or at the end of the first year who then went to med school and prospered.
There are some good doctors out there. But you sure have to be careful to look around for the right ones.
ping
Actually, it's a lot more than that. It's the fact that we have the capability to treat many more diseases than in years past. There are more choices to make. The amount of learning required has induced increased specialization, which narrows the solution set offered by any one practitioner, often to the point of unapplicability. The amount to learn also decreases the pool of qualified physicians. Doctors want to cure patients, so they try their best within their knowledge. Unfortunately, maladies aren't specialized.
Advanced capability in any specialty often comes at a higher price. That combination increases risk. Pooling risks increases the total that can be spent on any one case, which gradually increases total demand beyond what the payer can bear. The pressure to cut costs increases, as does the risk that the diagnosis is wrong.
Taken together, that means doing more in less time. There are now more "correct" diagnoses requiring more data than can be determined in the time and budget alotted for initial screening.
"P"
re: the 30 minutes you sit in the examining room before they walk in
And the 45 minutes or more sitting in the waiting room before being ushered into an examining room.
Like "What's the phone number of the nearest Chinese herbalist?" ;)
So why is it that when YOU go in for a problem, the doctor sees you for about 15 minutes...but when you take your car in, they keep it all day?
That's why they call it PRACTISING medicine!
Our culture lionizes and exaggerates the power of physicians.They're humans and they make mistakes-a lot of mistakes.
marking
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