3 ms·

>Tell them what is wrong with you, so they'll give you the right treatment Yeaaah about that, am I the only one concerned about the state of medicine, i.e. dia

by noobie 11y ago

>Tell them what is wrong with you, so they'll give you the right treatment Yeaaah about that, am I the only one concerned about the state of medicine, i.e. diagnosis? There always seems to be a myriad of symptoms that are common between various diseases/conditions. I honestly don't see how to blindly trust doctors. inb4 edit: I am not saying we shouldn't trust doctors.

DanBC 11y ago
You can always ask your doctor why they think you have X and not Y. And whenever they recommend treatment it's always good to ask "What happens if we don't do this? What happens if we just watch and wait?"
- Swizec 11y ago
  > And whenever they recommend treatment it's always good to ask "What happens if we don't do this? What happens if we just watch and wait?" And then you don't do that and spend $1400 in vet bills to find out your bird had a tummy ache. Thanks overly worried girlfriend.
  - thedaemon 11y ago
    There is only 1 thing that dog people and cat people can agree on. That is: bird people are really weird.
noir_lord 11y ago
As someone who sees a lot of doctors the ones I really trust are the ones who say "I don't know" or "I'm not certain but...". Given that my symptoms matched a host of things and its a 7 to 20 in 100,000 thing that only got caught because a good AE (ER) doc told me to forcefully request an MRI I've learnt which doctors to trust over time. Also if you have a rare condition don't expect your average doc to know much about it even my specialist (first one) wasn't that up on the latest research (again unsurprising, they are concerned with hundreds of patients, I'm only concerned with one). Doctors are generally excellent but they are not omniscient and the good ones own it.
- geedy 11y ago
  This is a good heuristic for just about _everybody_. The more people are willing to say "I don't know", the higher the likelihood that they are saying what they really believe to be true when they don't.
  - noobermin 11y ago
    It's odd you say this. The default response for many people is when they deal with someone who seems filmsy-flamsy, they automatically distrust that person and gravitate towards the firm and confident instead...and use that as a proxy for judgement of their knowledge/intellegence.
  - mnw21cam 11y ago
    Part of the purpose of training for a doctorate (and one of the things that they will test for in a final viva examination) is to demonstrate the responsibility to not claim something to be true when you don't have sufficient evidence. So therefore, people with doctorates should typically say "I don't know" more often than other people.
abandonliberty 11y ago
We should trust doctors - or any expert - while accepting that they are fallible humans, some of whom chose the profession for the wrong reasons and graduated at the bottom of their class. Still beats a layperson. I'm really hoping some of the people I knew who got into med school will go into research.
bayonetz 11y ago
Doctors know a lot about the body, medical diagnosis, etc. Certainly more than me. However, I think it is fair to say that there is plenty left to be discovered when it comes to the body, medical diagnosis, etc. and any given doctor can't know all the things there is to know. Yet I find doctors routinely dispense diagnosis and treatments with very little clarification of their knowledge or certainty on the particular issue at hand. I find they also bristle at efforts for patients to clarify or understand their judgements. I absolutely am NOT the kind of person that wants my doctor to "always convey confidence" even when they are uncertain. I happen to know a thing or two about logical reasoning and diagnostic assessment -- I want the straight truth so I can make the decisions I can. What is the problem I wonder? As other comment says, I'd love to get a doctor that would just say something like "we don't really know about this one...but we can throw a couple Hail Marys and see what sticks" In some cases that is the most accurate and sensible thing they could say. I sometimes wonder if it is just the doctors I have access to via my regular health insurance. Just like engineers, there must be a distribution of quality among doctors. How do I find the good ones?

by noobie 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

You can always ask your doctor why they think you have X and not Y. And whenever they recommend treatment it's always good to ask "What happens if we don't do this? What happens if we just watch and wait?"

Swizec 11y ago
> And whenever they recommend treatment it's always good to ask "What happens if we don't do this? What happens if we just watch and wait?" And then you don't do that and spend $1400 in vet bills to find out your bird had a tummy ache. Thanks overly worried girlfriend.
- thedaemon 11y ago
  There is only 1 thing that dog people and cat people can agree on. That is: bird people are really weird.

noir_lord 11y ago

As someone who sees a lot of doctors the ones I really trust are the ones who say "I don't know" or "I'm not certain but...". Given that my symptoms matched a host of things and its a 7 to 20 in 100,000 thing that only got caught because a good AE (ER) doc told me to forcefully request an MRI I've learnt which doctors to trust over time. Also if you have a rare condition don't expect your average doc to know much about it even my specialist (first one) wasn't that up on the latest research (again unsurprising, they are concerned with hundreds of patients, I'm only concerned with one). Doctors are generally excellent but they are not omniscient and the good ones own it.

geedy 11y ago
This is a good heuristic for just about _everybody_. The more people are willing to say "I don't know", the higher the likelihood that they are saying what they really believe to be true when they don't.
- noobermin 11y ago
  It's odd you say this. The default response for many people is when they deal with someone who seems filmsy-flamsy, they automatically distrust that person and gravitate towards the firm and confident instead...and use that as a proxy for judgement of their knowledge/intellegence.
- mnw21cam 11y ago
  Part of the purpose of training for a doctorate (and one of the things that they will test for in a final viva examination) is to demonstrate the responsibility to not claim something to be true when you don't have sufficient evidence. So therefore, people with doctorates should typically say "I don't know" more often than other people.

abandonliberty 11y ago

We should trust doctors - or any expert - while accepting that they are fallible humans, some of whom chose the profession for the wrong reasons and graduated at the bottom of their class. Still beats a layperson. I'm really hoping some of the people I knew who got into med school will go into research.

bayonetz 11y ago

Doctors know a lot about the body, medical diagnosis, etc. Certainly more than me. However, I think it is fair to say that there is plenty left to be discovered when it comes to the body, medical diagnosis, etc. and any given doctor can't know all the things there is to know. Yet I find doctors routinely dispense diagnosis and treatments with very little clarification of their knowledge or certainty on the particular issue at hand. I find they also bristle at efforts for patients to clarify or understand their judgements. I absolutely am NOT the kind of person that wants my doctor to "always convey confidence" even when they are uncertain. I happen to know a thing or two about logical reasoning and diagnostic assessment -- I want the straight truth so I can make the decisions I can. What is the problem I wonder? As other comment says, I'd love to get a doctor that would just say something like "we don't really know about this one...but we can throw a couple Hail Marys and see what sticks" In some cases that is the most accurate and sensible thing they could say. I sometimes wonder if it is just the doctors I have access to via my regular health insurance. Just like engineers, there must be a distribution of quality among doctors. How do I find the good ones?