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It seemed like an opportunity for more people to just learn some of the skills for these expensive procedures so out of curiosity, I looked up what army field

It seemed like an opportunity for more people to just learn some of the skills for these expensive procedures so out of curiosity, I looked up what army field medics learn. It's a 16 week course. Stitches, bone setting, and minor surgeries should be done by the equivalent of barbers. The prices are a perfect storm of what is essentially a unionized tightly gatekept profession, obviously perverse inventives in insurance, and the consequent inflation. Swap debt for insurance, and you have the dynanic of the education market as well. Both of them are artifacts of regulatory capture. Arguably, instead of teaching kids to code we could teach them to handle 50%+ of emergency room visit causes and the resultant widespread competence and research impact would make medicine progress at the rate tech has. I suspect the main reason we don't have biohacker first aid kits for routine procedures is drug controls on anesthetic, but there is a already robust global black market for drugs that could meet this need. A list of procedures sorted by risk and pain could be solved pretty fast. Of course there will be wildly irresponsible malpractice, but compared to the consequences of the current system, it probably nets out, and for medical industry people who don't think it would, they aren't really in a position to object to a free market in health services. If we can create a market, knowledge networks and a disitribution system for 3D printed guns, we should apply the same ethos and skills and come for medical care next. We need a Cody Wilson of medicine.

tablespoon 5y ago
> It seemed like an opportunity for more people to just learn some of the skills for these expensive procedures so out of curiosity, I looked up what army field medics learn. It's a 16 week course. Stitches, bone setting, and minor surgeries should be done by the equivalent of barbers. But "can I do it?" and "can I do it well?" are different questions. For instance (IIRC), badly done stitches can leave more of a scar than expertly done ones and a badly set bone may heal in the wrong position. There's also knowing the difference between typical situations and more unusual ones that look similar but require a different treatment. It's not a bad thing to know how to do those things for an emergency, which is the context an army field medic would do them, but that's quite different from an everyday accident with accessible medical care.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  If I were to pay $10k or more for stitches anywhere else in the world, they would come with a set of top shelf breast implants and a hollywood quality facelift. In Cuba, they would give you a bonus hip or a new knee. There is no quality case for the price of the majority of routine american health procedures. An Uber for medical toursism would even be more cost effective.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  I'd happily take a scar if it saved me $20,000 on stitches. I do agree that I'm not leaping at the opportunity for getting untrained medical care.... but on the other hand I've been treated by residents pretty often and they still charged outrageous amounts.
addicted 5y ago
You are right. What we need is a completely new mechanism that does not really work all that well and is dependent on completely new technology. What we shouldn’t do is look at what nearly every other developed country has done to manage this situation, to the point where the most expensive amongst them is still half as expensive as the US system. /snark It still completely astonishes me how often Americans will come up with pie in the sky non solutions to solve problems that other similar countries have solved decades ago.

tablespoon 5y ago

> It seemed like an opportunity for more people to just learn some of the skills for these expensive procedures so out of curiosity, I looked up what army field medics learn. It's a 16 week course. Stitches, bone setting, and minor surgeries should be done by the equivalent of barbers. But "can I do it?" and "can I do it well?" are different questions. For instance (IIRC), badly done stitches can leave more of a scar than expertly done ones and a badly set bone may heal in the wrong position. There's also knowing the difference between typical situations and more unusual ones that look similar but require a different treatment. It's not a bad thing to know how to do those things for an emergency, which is the context an army field medic would do them, but that's quite different from an everyday accident with accessible medical care.

motohagiography 5y ago
If I were to pay $10k or more for stitches anywhere else in the world, they would come with a set of top shelf breast implants and a hollywood quality facelift. In Cuba, they would give you a bonus hip or a new knee. There is no quality case for the price of the majority of routine american health procedures. An Uber for medical toursism would even be more cost effective.
UncleMeat 5y ago
I'd happily take a scar if it saved me $20,000 on stitches. I do agree that I'm not leaping at the opportunity for getting untrained medical care.... but on the other hand I've been treated by residents pretty often and they still charged outrageous amounts.

addicted 5y ago

You are right. What we need is a completely new mechanism that does not really work all that well and is dependent on completely new technology. What we shouldn’t do is look at what nearly every other developed country has done to manage this situation, to the point where the most expensive amongst them is still half as expensive as the US system. /snark It still completely astonishes me how often Americans will come up with pie in the sky non solutions to solve problems that other similar countries have solved decades ago.