3 ms·

I saw someone post to HN once in an article about a cancer vaccine - "Doctors want patients, not cures". Really stuck with me. Modern society categorizes peopl

I saw someone post to HN once in an article about a cancer vaccine - "Doctors want patients, not cures". Really stuck with me. Modern society categorizes people. When a citizen fails to adapt to society (for better or worse) and they feel a certain pressure to submit to the opinions of an "expert", they become part of a revenue stream. The DSM-V has them figured out. Many types of mental illnesses are symptoms of the environment. We are spending too much time looking at MRIs, that is, looking inward - the brain structure must hold the clues to the "cure". But the brain molds to interface the user with its surroundings. It is the effect, not the cause. Perhaps show empathy for the mentally ill once they've spent years being drugged out by attempted "cures".

stochastic_monk 8y ago
I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of doctors who are well-respected in their field. I never once saw one more excited than the times they’d describe what it was like to find out a patient was a candidate for a targeted therapy and bring them back from death’s door. Most of them do this to treat, and I believe they’d be very happy to be out of a job if it meant fewer children, parents, or simply humans, had to die.
- tuananh 8y ago
  Doctors, maybe but I doubt about this when it comes to big pharmaceutical corps.
- opportune 8y ago
  Even "very good" doctors often don't know the state of the art procedures and treatments for their craft, as I have personally discovered since a close family member began receiving cancer treatment. From my experience, the vast majority of doctors' response to bringing up experimental treatments or care - or even recently approved, well-researched treatments - is a mindless affirmation of "that's the future", meaning they don't know anything about it. If you press them, most will say that they prefer to start patients with XYZ, which means "I want your business but don't know about that treatment". This happened to my own sick relative, a pharmacogenomics researcher, who said it reminded him almost exactly of trying to get clinicians to incorporate basic gene panels into their practice (e.g. don't give this patient warfarin because they have this gene which will make them bleed to death). As a society we are much too afraid to call shitty doctors shitty doctors. Having parents in medicine, I grew up hearing about them all the time. I do believe that most doctors would not consciously and maliciously decide to sacrifice people's health for money. I also believe that most doctors aren't particularly diligent about keeping up to date on medical information throughout their careers; for every developer with 30+ years of experience who has treated a job as a job and worked with the same tech staff for all his life without bothering to learn new ones, there's a doctor doing the same with medicine.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    It’s true that there are such doctors. My experience is not necessarily typical, as these were faculty at a well-regarded cancer hospital and always very close to new developments. The ones I mention, being involved in clinical trials and new treatments/diagnostics makes them particularly appropriate for this discussion because they are at the intersection of translational treatment and patients. (Cures vs patients) You’re right that many doctors aren’t called out like they should be out of some misguided deference, and I’m disappointed to hear how many of them are in cases which matter so, so very much to you, if not to them. With regard to your personal experience, remember that no professional will care as much about your or your loved one’s condition as you will. You (or your loved one) are the only patient you’re treating, and I encourage you to advocate as necessary.
- moneytide1 8y ago
  I do believe that most medical professionals are well-meaning, especially when people choose to trust them with their health. I do not question their empathy and selflessness. But my comment is directed at the belief that a medical professional always knows best. The doctor that actually interfaces with the patient is equipped with tools and techniques that originate from other divisions of expertise that develop pharmaceuticals, testing equipment, or coordinate large-scale case-studies. These numerous cohorts that sift through the data (and are now faced with ever-increasing administrative costs) seem disconnected with recurring patterns in the life of a citizen that end up causing these brain anomalies. Again, they are chasing down the effect, not the cause.
patmcc 8y ago
>>"Doctors want patients, not cures". Really stuck with me. I suspect you don't know many doctor personally. If you have the intelligence, patience, grit, money, etc. to go through the many years of school and training to be a doctor, you're not doing it primarily for the money. There are other professions that offer similar levels of pay and prestige with much less trouble. Doctors want to help patients.
crummy 8y ago
If you were a doctor, would you be trying to cure your patients or keep their bills coming in?
- moneytide1 8y ago
  I used to work in road construction, traffic control. I was paired with a man twice my age that had spent the majority of his life in OTR trucking. He told me stories of all the uppers and downers he took, in order to allow for the lifestyle of "racking up as many miles as I can." He would smoke through a pack every night. Needless to say, his base-line health was compromised because of these habits. One night he tells me the doctor has discovered a tumor on his lung. He continued to smoke at the same rate, against my (and I'm sure his doctors) advice. At some point he started chemo, and still came to work. Looked like a dead man walking. I'm no medical expert, but it seems to me that chemotherapy irritates the wound. Fast forward a couple months after I had quit that job, I hear that he has died of lung cancer. But I also here that his wife had resorted to putting donation jars at cash registers at nearby gas stations, in order to keep funding this "treatment". So this man died of a habit he refused to give up, but not before trusting the doctor(s) involved and draining the resources his family would have after he was gone. I know this is not a story of mental illness, which seems to be a more elusive affliction that something like cancer that directly affects the bodies hardware. The theme of my input on this empathy matter is not directed at the disposition of the doctor, but rather the assumption of the patient that the doctor always knows best. It is more of a trust issue, now that administrative costs make up 30% of healthcare cash flow.

stochastic_monk 8y ago

I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of doctors who are well-respected in their field. I never once saw one more excited than the times they’d describe what it was like to find out a patient was a candidate for a targeted therapy and bring them back from death’s door. Most of them do this to treat, and I believe they’d be very happy to be out of a job if it meant fewer children, parents, or simply humans, had to die.

tuananh 8y ago
Doctors, maybe but I doubt about this when it comes to big pharmaceutical corps.
opportune 8y ago
Even "very good" doctors often don't know the state of the art procedures and treatments for their craft, as I have personally discovered since a close family member began receiving cancer treatment. From my experience, the vast majority of doctors' response to bringing up experimental treatments or care - or even recently approved, well-researched treatments - is a mindless affirmation of "that's the future", meaning they don't know anything about it. If you press them, most will say that they prefer to start patients with XYZ, which means "I want your business but don't know about that treatment". This happened to my own sick relative, a pharmacogenomics researcher, who said it reminded him almost exactly of trying to get clinicians to incorporate basic gene panels into their practice (e.g. don't give this patient warfarin because they have this gene which will make them bleed to death). As a society we are much too afraid to call shitty doctors shitty doctors. Having parents in medicine, I grew up hearing about them all the time. I do believe that most doctors would not consciously and maliciously decide to sacrifice people's health for money. I also believe that most doctors aren't particularly diligent about keeping up to date on medical information throughout their careers; for every developer with 30+ years of experience who has treated a job as a job and worked with the same tech staff for all his life without bothering to learn new ones, there's a doctor doing the same with medicine.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  It’s true that there are such doctors. My experience is not necessarily typical, as these were faculty at a well-regarded cancer hospital and always very close to new developments. The ones I mention, being involved in clinical trials and new treatments/diagnostics makes them particularly appropriate for this discussion because they are at the intersection of translational treatment and patients. (Cures vs patients) You’re right that many doctors aren’t called out like they should be out of some misguided deference, and I’m disappointed to hear how many of them are in cases which matter so, so very much to you, if not to them. With regard to your personal experience, remember that no professional will care as much about your or your loved one’s condition as you will. You (or your loved one) are the only patient you’re treating, and I encourage you to advocate as necessary.
moneytide1 8y ago
I do believe that most medical professionals are well-meaning, especially when people choose to trust them with their health. I do not question their empathy and selflessness. But my comment is directed at the belief that a medical professional always knows best. The doctor that actually interfaces with the patient is equipped with tools and techniques that originate from other divisions of expertise that develop pharmaceuticals, testing equipment, or coordinate large-scale case-studies. These numerous cohorts that sift through the data (and are now faced with ever-increasing administrative costs) seem disconnected with recurring patterns in the life of a citizen that end up causing these brain anomalies. Again, they are chasing down the effect, not the cause.

patmcc 8y ago

>>"Doctors want patients, not cures". Really stuck with me. I suspect you don't know many doctor personally. If you have the intelligence, patience, grit, money, etc. to go through the many years of school and training to be a doctor, you're not doing it primarily for the money. There are other professions that offer similar levels of pay and prestige with much less trouble. Doctors want to help patients.

crummy 8y ago

If you were a doctor, would you be trying to cure your patients or keep their bills coming in?

moneytide1 8y ago
I used to work in road construction, traffic control. I was paired with a man twice my age that had spent the majority of his life in OTR trucking. He told me stories of all the uppers and downers he took, in order to allow for the lifestyle of "racking up as many miles as I can." He would smoke through a pack every night. Needless to say, his base-line health was compromised because of these habits. One night he tells me the doctor has discovered a tumor on his lung. He continued to smoke at the same rate, against my (and I'm sure his doctors) advice. At some point he started chemo, and still came to work. Looked like a dead man walking. I'm no medical expert, but it seems to me that chemotherapy irritates the wound. Fast forward a couple months after I had quit that job, I hear that he has died of lung cancer. But I also here that his wife had resorted to putting donation jars at cash registers at nearby gas stations, in order to keep funding this "treatment". So this man died of a habit he refused to give up, but not before trusting the doctor(s) involved and draining the resources his family would have after he was gone. I know this is not a story of mental illness, which seems to be a more elusive affliction that something like cancer that directly affects the bodies hardware. The theme of my input on this empathy matter is not directed at the disposition of the doctor, but rather the assumption of the patient that the doctor always knows best. It is more of a trust issue, now that administrative costs make up 30% of healthcare cash flow.