4 ms·

The problem with empowering people medically is that 10% of people will benefit from it but 90% of people will get info from Facebook and infomercials and fall

The problem with empowering people medically is that 10% of people will benefit from it but 90% of people will get info from Facebook and infomercials and fall victim to quacks. Hence everything being gated behind credentials and prescriptions (along with some good old regulatory capture). I disagree with the characterization of medicine not being able to treat so many things. Many things are incurable but a lot of medicine/public health is so effective we barely think about it. Of course we are going to notice and pay more attention to the things medicine sucks at treating, because they’re real problems that inflict a lot of pain due to the lack of treatment. But medicine is very good at treating plenty of things like infections (of many different kinds), traumatic/acute injuries, and many disabilities. Most of the chronic issues that medicine fails to address are simply lifestyle issues that medicine tries to alleviate the symptoms for. Yes there are certain conditions medicine doesn’t begin to fully understand like Alzheimer’s or various chronic pain conditions, or where treatment is still pretty middling like Cancer, but a lot of the biggest things are treatable very well - we just don’t notice them much because they are treated so well.

the__alchemist 5y ago
> I disagree with the characterization of medicine not being able to treat so many things. Many things are incurable but a lot of medicine/public health is so effective we barely think about it. Of course we are going to notice and pay more attention to the things medicine sucks at treating, because they’re real problems that inflict a lot of pain due to the lack of treatment. > But medicine is very good at treating plenty of things like infections (of many different kinds), traumatic/acute injuries, and many disabilities. I agree that medicine is very good at treating infections and traumatic/acute injuries. Which disabilities are you referring to? Outside of these categories, what can we we effectively treat or cure? It seems to be very little.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  Hip replacements? Cataract surgery? Disfigurements (cosmetic surgery)? - just off the top of my head. My own mother had "cosmetic" surgeries to re-set her toes which had been deformed by decades of fashionable shoes, and to remove varicose veins which are painful. Occasionally one reads about someone's hearing, sight, or power of speech being restored also. Maybe only a few things, but still affecting millions, if not tens of millions of people. I also think that medicine is a victim of its own success, in two ways. One, how many funerals of people in their thirties to fifties does the average person go to, these days, compared to say the 1920s? It's hard to see things that don't happen. Two, success breeds hubris which breeds a sense of being right whatever the evidence may say.
  - the__alchemist 5y ago
    I agree on all of the above as useful as well.
galangalalgol 5y ago
I feel like autoimmune, endocrine, and GI issues, and various combinations of those are the biggest frustration to people, along with complicated surgeries/replacements that we just haven't figured out yet. But those first three are horribly complicated and interrelated systems whose disorders affect probably close to a third of the population, maybe half. Just autoimmune thyroid issues affect about a fifth of women. Not to mention all thyroid issues, autoimmune diabetes, other diabetes, chrons, ibs, fibro myalgia, maybe long covid, etc. You are right to point out that many suffering from those conditions wouldn't even be alive without modern treatments and that we don't notice all that modern medicine can solve. But we also need to acknowledge there are many people for whom we dont have answers yet, and we are using evidence based medicine to say that because we don't have studies yet, there is nothing to be tried. I also think diet and lifestyle changes get undersuggested due to ebm. No one seems as eager to fund a study that tests a diet or activity to treat a condition as they are to fund investigation into a new drug, surgery, or diagnostic equipment.

the__alchemist 5y ago

> I disagree with the characterization of medicine not being able to treat so many things. Many things are incurable but a lot of medicine/public health is so effective we barely think about it. Of course we are going to notice and pay more attention to the things medicine sucks at treating, because they’re real problems that inflict a lot of pain due to the lack of treatment. > But medicine is very good at treating plenty of things like infections (of many different kinds), traumatic/acute injuries, and many disabilities. I agree that medicine is very good at treating infections and traumatic/acute injuries. Which disabilities are you referring to? Outside of these categories, what can we we effectively treat or cure? It seems to be very little.

tuatoru 5y ago
Hip replacements? Cataract surgery? Disfigurements (cosmetic surgery)? - just off the top of my head. My own mother had "cosmetic" surgeries to re-set her toes which had been deformed by decades of fashionable shoes, and to remove varicose veins which are painful. Occasionally one reads about someone's hearing, sight, or power of speech being restored also. Maybe only a few things, but still affecting millions, if not tens of millions of people. I also think that medicine is a victim of its own success, in two ways. One, how many funerals of people in their thirties to fifties does the average person go to, these days, compared to say the 1920s? It's hard to see things that don't happen. Two, success breeds hubris which breeds a sense of being right whatever the evidence may say.
- the__alchemist 5y ago
  I agree on all of the above as useful as well.

galangalalgol 5y ago

I feel like autoimmune, endocrine, and GI issues, and various combinations of those are the biggest frustration to people, along with complicated surgeries/replacements that we just haven't figured out yet. But those first three are horribly complicated and interrelated systems whose disorders affect probably close to a third of the population, maybe half. Just autoimmune thyroid issues affect about a fifth of women. Not to mention all thyroid issues, autoimmune diabetes, other diabetes, chrons, ibs, fibro myalgia, maybe long covid, etc. You are right to point out that many suffering from those conditions wouldn't even be alive without modern treatments and that we don't notice all that modern medicine can solve. But we also need to acknowledge there are many people for whom we dont have answers yet, and we are using evidence based medicine to say that because we don't have studies yet, there is nothing to be tried. I also think diet and lifestyle changes get undersuggested due to ebm. No one seems as eager to fund a study that tests a diet or activity to treat a condition as they are to fund investigation into a new drug, surgery, or diagnostic equipment.