8 ms·
A half-lifetime of experiencing and observing modern medicine, in good faith, has taught me that participating in the medical system while not in need of emerge
by mrangle 3y ago
A half-lifetime of experiencing and observing modern medicine, in good faith, has taught me that participating in the medical system while not in need of emergency care is risking one's health and life.
Assuming that one doesn't engage in risky behavior, the smartest path is to avoid the medical system altogether. That doesn't mean "seek alternative medicine". It's just what I said.
The Medical system doesn't highlight its failures. It obscures them, and only speaks in bullshit PR terms. Its failures (premature suffering and death) are almost always attributed to causes other than the malpractice that caused them. Even families are hoodwinked.
Laugh at anyone quoting "evidence" without citing it for critique. The medical profession hasn't had broadly-intact scientific integrity for decades.
Much of medicine is charlatanism for billing. Doctors know this though most won't admit it. The consequences range from annoyance, to minor malfunction, to catastrophic.
- opportune 3y agoThe real hack is having friends and family in the medical field. You can skip the chicanery of medical “intake” and diagnosis outside highly specialized conditions, get advice without extortionate bills or misaligned incentivizes, and they can help you get appointments with specialists/tell you who’s the best to see, even write you rx’s directly. I recently had an infection that, due to being geographically isolated from my typical medical network of friends and family, resulted in $1k of bills after insurance for something that was essentially routine and which I would have been able to treat myself if I had the ability to get medicine without an rx. The general public who don’t have the scientific/medical literacy to self-serve and lack the network to get treatment without going through the formal process are getting fleeced.
- cube00 3y agoFriends and family need to be off the clock too, be respectful if anyone chooses to do this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lostlogin 3y agoThe flip side is that they sometimes genuinely want to help. As you say, be respectful. My elderly neighbour (who I saw maybe twice in a decade) had her daughter visiting, and the daughter came by and suggested I might like to change the dressings on her mother’s ulcers because I’m “used to looking at gross stuff.” I’m a radiographer. I’m pretty much useless in every situation unless someone has a a high field magnets and wants pictures.
- opportune 3y agoRight, I am speaking more about close relationships where they’d offer help without you even having to ask, not some long-lost friend that you only ever bother when you need their medical opinion.
- plugin-baby 3y agoIs “rx” an abbreviation of “prescription”?
- grzm 3y agoYup. > Rx (sometimes written ℞) is a common abbreviation for medical prescriptions derived from the Latin word for recipe, recipere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rx
- kfrzcode 3y agoThe medical field will soon be over-ran by software and AI specialists applying and graduating from medical school in order to build the modern individualized medicine augmentation systems of the future. Think about the specialization required to build a reliable, trusted and tested GPT-for-medicine, and then give it to all citizens for free, because, hey, it's going to be a huge boon for our country.
- chaxor 3y agoI think this is a reasonable response to the terrible atrocity that is medical care (in the US*). The way forward is likely going to be the medical form of 'self-hosted': home medical devices for self diagnosis. There will be many that flock to this comment to make claims about home devices and how they're 'inaccurate' or other nonsense, but the truth is that it is very possible and in many situations already the case that home devices are FDA approved, and often better accuracy than what you may receive in the clinic. Obviously, this is for a subset of diagnostic tests, and certainly nothing dealing with radiation potential, but the opportunity for expansion is certainly there and I think will continue to expand and fill this enormous hole the US has.
- nradov 3y agoYou obviously have no clue how this stuff actually works. Most major medical insurers already have programs to distribute connected smart devices for monitoring vital signs to patients that have been diagnosed with chronic diseases such as heart failure or type-2 diabetes. But those devices are largely useless for diagnosis. You can't really get a home HbA1c blood test.
- pierat 3y agoDemonstrably untrue. CVS sells a kit to do hba1c for $50 https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-health-at-home-a1c-test-kit-prodid-496010?skuId=496010 https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-health-at-home-a1c-test-kit-pro... Other tests can also be done with a lab. You just have to ask.
- kfrzcode 3y agoYeah, it's a whole cottage thing: https://www.everlywell.com/ https://www.everlywell.com/
- manmal 3y agoTime in range is arguably a better metric to control anyway, and that’s really easy to track now with a CGM and one of the myriad diabetes apps.
- sdfhionionio 3y ago[dead]
- Der_Einzige 3y agoYup. I cannot believe how much insurance providers bend over for actual fake bullshit like chiropractors, dentists or "naturopathic doctors" who use homeopathic remedies, and related quakery, but then try to screw people over on stuff that's actually scientifically more sound.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hattmall 3y agoAre dentist really fake bullshit tho? Dental insurance is bullshit but like dentistry is a legitimate profession. Insurance however is selling to the customer and the government, it's easy to cover the fake bullshit.
- Der_Einzige 3y agoI mean dentists who peddle homeopathic remedies. This literally happened to me where a dental surgeon had me purchase some homeopathic thing to use before a surgery and gave me scare tactics about how much I needed to use it. I ended up forgetting to use it, and was freaked out. When they told me not to worry, I had a hunch, and sure enough when I got home, I saw "homeopathic" on it. I ceased all service with this dental surgeon and filed complaints with my states dental board. They told me to pound sand, as I have to show that this stuff would hurt people. You could hear my eyes roll as I listened to the states dental investigator explain this crap to me.
- CogitoCogito 3y ago> They told me to pound sand, as I have to show that this stuff would hurt people. What total nonsense. What the dentist did is actually _worse_ than just stealing the same amount of money from your wallet. I guess the only reasonable approach is to try to ruin the dentist’s reputation publicly. Or I guess to just move on since that dentist is just one in a million professional charlatans in modern American society.
- 3y ago
- TheBlight 3y agoThank you for your comment. Now I don't need to write the same thing.
- in_cahoots 3y agoHaving kids has shown me how much of medicine is about incentive alignment, rather than doing no harm. Every time one of my kids gets an ear infection, pinkeye, or a sore throat, my daycare requires a doctor’s note and antibiotics to be given before they are allowed back in daycare. The urgent care doctors always prescribe antibiotics, even though the most likely cause is viral and most bacterial infections resolve within 3-5 days with or without antibiotics. I had one case where the strep test was negative, and the doctor still prescribed antibiotics because it could be a false negative. And my kids are allowed back in daycare after 0-24 hours depending on the diagnosis, even though the medicine takes 3-5 days to work. I was shocked to go through this the first time, after reading so much about the over-prescription of antibiotics. But doctors would rather write a prescription than explain the evidence to stressed parents and daycare providers. And daycares all copy each others’ policies, because nobody wants to admit that kids are just contagious snot-monsters and medicine can’t really help. It’s pure theatre, at the expense of kids’ health (antibiotics do a number on the digestive system) and leads to antibiotic-resistant strains. But at least nobody ever had to stop and have a difficult conversation.
- notimetorelax 3y agoThis varies country by country. In Switzerland you need to beg for antibiotics if you think you need them.
- i2cmaster 3y agoAt this point I'd rather die in my house. So much of it is obviously crap and it's so inconvenient and expensive I'd rather avoid doctors altogether.
- CogitoCogito 3y agoIf you’re on hospice, you can die at home while still making use of the US medical system.
- i2cmaster 3y agoNah I don't want them involved.
- CogitoCogito 3y agoHospice’s amount of involvement is largely up to you. Also hospice doesn’t only help you, but also your family. That said, it is of course your own choice. I would personally want as as little involvement as possible from people outside the family.
- davidgay 3y ago> A half-lifetime of experiencing and observing modern medicine, in good faith, has taught me that participating in the medical system while not in need of emergency care is risking one's health and life. This is rather hyperbolic. And furthermore, your clearly don't have chronic but non-emergency conditions which require regular care if you care to have a reasonable life (3 going on 4 for me).
- danmaz74 3y agoThis is so skewed towards the US. Eg here in Europe people go to their GP much more often because those visits are free, and hard data says we live longer than in the the US. So the problem isn't "doctors" or "medicine", the problem is the US medical system.
- imiric 3y agoPlease. I've been through medical systems in several European countries, and the GP system is frustratingly bad. GPs will at best prescribe you some medication, but will otherwise act as entitled gatekeepers to the rest of the system. Unless you're bleeding on their table, they'll do their best to avoid sending you to a specialist. They'll engage in the same charlatanism that GP is talking about. Healthcare in Europe is not free. You're taxed for it quite highly. Calling this system "healthcare" is too generous. It only exists to keep people from complaining, and healthy enough so they can be productive enough to be taxed. There is no care.
- xkbarkar 3y agoYou are often also charged fees at the doctors office or even emergency care. And places like Sweden have private health insurance so you domt have to stay in the “free” broken system with years of waiting before getting to a specialist. I always cringe when nordics make fun of the US healthcare system. Ours is just as expensive and horribly broken. You may not get a 20k dollar bill for immediate care. You are instead set on a 5-14 year (not a typo ) waiting list. Sweden is a capitalist country with socialist taxes.
- jiggywiggy 3y agoThere are waitlists but not for urgent care, this data suggest the US actually has the highest waitlists: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-wait-times-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-ca... But maybe if you are rich you can buy a place faster. Not sure if that should be celebrated.
- troupo 3y ago
- morsch 3y agoSo you advocate avoiding doctors and prescriptions unless you break a leg? Good luck when you get one of the many things modern medicine does treat pretty well. Your criticism of it may have some truth to it, possibly particularly when applied to the US, but the conclusions you draw from them are foolish. And you'll drop them like they're nothing when you get a bacterial infection your body can't deal with, the likelihood of which will increase in the second half of your life. Or maybe you won't, and die much earlier than necessary. We just had this discussion on a societal level.
- baby 3y agoThe worst experience for me has been dentists in the US. To me it’s a massive fraud industry.
- drclau 3y agoOut of curiosity, where are you from? FWIW, I agree with you, although I experienced the medical system only as a patient / outsider. I live in a former communist country in Eastern Europe.
- laratied 3y agoHow many people have ever heard the term iatrogenic harm? Basically no one. "Iatrogenesis refers to harm experienced by patients resulting from medical care" Studies put iatrogenic harm at about 30%. It is also estimated that the 14th leading cause of death in the world is iatrogenic harm
- loeg 3y ago30% of what? What studies?
- Llamamoe 3y agoChronically ill person here, cannot help but agree. "The doctor committed neither malpractice nor acted abusive" is the best outcome you can get out of the average healthcare professional. It's a profession where practitioners are treated like saints, while having zero incentive to actually do their job- there's no other field in which telling every client "it's all in your head" after running some meaninglessly basic and unlikely to be wrong diagnostics until they give up and go home keeps you employed and paid.