4 ms·

You're completely missing the actual conflict of interest, balance the creed of 'do not harm' with the reality of protecting themselves from the patients. No on

You're completely missing the actual conflict of interest, balance the creed of 'do not harm' with the reality of protecting themselves from the patients. No one wants to be sued for 'not doing enough' and stick of a potential malpractice suite makes the already incentivized extra procedures make a lot more sense. For once the larger problems don't lie with the system (although they certainly aren't helping), but rather the disgusting culture we have built up surrounding medical care and expectations. When your obese octogenarian grandmother dies the first thought shouldn't be litigation because the doctor didn't "run enough tests".

jlg23 11y ago
That. Exactly that. That goes so far that even when it is only the choice between the original pharmaceutical product and a generic, doctors will think twice out of fear to be sued if something goes wrong. I have one very scientifically inclined doctor in my family who fully understands that the chance of a generic being less effective is negligible. But, depending on the patient, she will prescribe the much more expensive original. Financially she does not profit from this at all, writing a prescription can be billed in her country but the height of the bill does not depend on the price of the prescribed medicine.
zaidf 11y ago
You nailed it. The thread is full of doctor-blaming, as if doctors really relish in calling for useless scans. In fact, most doctors hate it and only do it to protect themselves against lawsuits. The other blindspot many people in this thread have is that just as you can have shitty doctors, you have many more patients with shitty knowledge of medicine. My own view is that once you pick your doctor, stay informed but at the end of the day, you need to trust his judgement. If you don't, find another doctor. Why? Because ultimately, no surgeon can guarantee a successful outcome. So if you don't trust the doctor or have any doubt about him, if the outcome is poor, you will be inclined to blame him irrespective of whether he is at fault(more times than no, he's not at fault.) This is not very different from being a developer. If I am hired as a developer, I will take my client's input on the big decisions and let him make the decision if he wants to for certain things. But if my client wants to micromanage me and pick the names of the variables I use in my code or question my coding style, well, he'd be better off with another developer. Ideally, he should have never hired me based on my sample code.

jlg23 11y ago

That. Exactly that. That goes so far that even when it is only the choice between the original pharmaceutical product and a generic, doctors will think twice out of fear to be sued if something goes wrong. I have one very scientifically inclined doctor in my family who fully understands that the chance of a generic being less effective is negligible. But, depending on the patient, she will prescribe the much more expensive original. Financially she does not profit from this at all, writing a prescription can be billed in her country but the height of the bill does not depend on the price of the prescribed medicine.

zaidf 11y ago

You nailed it. The thread is full of doctor-blaming, as if doctors really relish in calling for useless scans. In fact, most doctors hate it and only do it to protect themselves against lawsuits. The other blindspot many people in this thread have is that just as you can have shitty doctors, you have many more patients with shitty knowledge of medicine. My own view is that once you pick your doctor, stay informed but at the end of the day, you need to trust his judgement. If you don't, find another doctor. Why? Because ultimately, no surgeon can guarantee a successful outcome. So if you don't trust the doctor or have any doubt about him, if the outcome is poor, you will be inclined to blame him irrespective of whether he is at fault(more times than no, he's not at fault.) This is not very different from being a developer. If I am hired as a developer, I will take my client's input on the big decisions and let him make the decision if he wants to for certain things. But if my client wants to micromanage me and pick the names of the variables I use in my code or question my coding style, well, he'd be better off with another developer. Ideally, he should have never hired me based on my sample code.