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This is very true. I had a SO with severe chronic gastric pain and they got passed around by doctors for years. One jerk wrote "drug seeking behavior" into her

This is very true. I had a SO with severe chronic gastric pain and they got passed around by doctors for years. One jerk wrote "drug seeking behavior" into her file and that made things even worse. Finally someone took her seriously, got imagery done, and discovered surgery was necessary. In US healthcare you have to be your own advocate and be willing to push. The system breaks down if you don't have a routine and obvious illness.

Etrnl_President 3y ago
Now imagine doing this on Canadian healthcare, having to wait months or years for each appointment, and nowadays they try to talk you into MAID to save resources…
- DropInIn 3y ago
  No one is talking anyone into going the MAID route, that's just some far right conservative party bs. Really, you just engaged in deception and promulgation of propaganda intended to push people toward neofascist ideology. Shame on you.
- canucker2016 3y ago
  MAID == Medical assistance in dying (assisted suicide) Went from nothing/reluctance to popular for some segments of the population
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  I know HN is a privileged place but people should recognize that the “worst case” of Canadian/European healthcare wait times is already the reality for many if not most Americans.. You shouldn’t base your understanding of American health care on personal experience if you work for a big company that provides a nice health insurance plan.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ROTMetro 3y ago
    I have jank government insurance and this is not true. When I got out of prison and had no insurance I went to the city's clinics. Wait times have never been an issue (at most was two weeks for specialist). The doctors in the clinic were also friggin amazing doctors/people. I had a ton of shame around getting out of prison, some much shame about needing to get tests ran for HIV/Hep from being in prison but they were so good about it all (all came out negative so woohoo). Now dentists...when we had money we went to a family friend. He still totally f'd us and did unnecessary work. It's only now that I have a cash only country dentist that I trust my dentist again. Crazy part is the cash only dentist ends up being cheaper than my previous copay/premiums insurance dentists.
    - tyg13 3y ago
      I'm always surprised when people leave comments like these, based on nothing but N=1 anecdata. You don't have any authority to say something like "this is not true" with regards to the whole of the American healthcare experience. Compared to my own personal experience, yours was uncommonly-good. Wait times for specialists for my SO's heart condition are routinely several months out.
      - zdragnar 3y ago
        What this demonstrates is that wait times are widely variable by specialty and region. Arguments like "for most Americans" are wrong on their face, because most Americans don't live in the same area or have the same issues. My wife and I have both had to see various specialists. Some had very long wait times, many didn't, and of those that did, we were (fortunately) able to call around to different clinics to find one that wasn't too bad.
        DropInIn 3y ago
        "Most" comes from the actual data The exceptions are part of that data set Really...
      - giantg2 3y ago
        To be fair, their statement of n=1 is more evidence than the other person posted (comment without any evidence). Although both are weak.
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
  Yeah that's a hyperbolic exaggeration.
- momirlan 3y ago
  Absolutely true, and that is if you even have a family doctor to refer you to a specialist. For those who had the luck to lose their family doctor (mine through retirement), it is impossible to find one that takes new patients. Many retired during covid, many more only work part time. The Canadian health care is a disaster at this point, and those who have a family doctor have no clue how awful this is.
  - smsm42 3y ago
    In the US it's not easy to find a primary care provider also. When we moved couple of years ago and called a local medical center to establish a primary care provider, we were given answers like "we have the nearest appointments in 6-8 months". If you have something urgent, there's telemedicine line where you can talk to advice nurse or if there's something really urgent, get an appointment with an urgent care doctor. But all primary care providers seem to be booked solid for months. And given how many patients they'd have and how often they see each one, establishing any kind of personal care relationship is out of the question. How personal can it be if you can see you doctor twice a year for 20 minutes? I think the only solution is go get rich enough so you can afford personal concierge doctors or however it is called (no idea since I'm not rich enough).
    - mynameishere 3y ago
      rich enough so you can afford personal concierge A few minutes research suggests it's not that expensive. (As little as ~2000/year).
      - 20after4 3y ago
        For most people, that's expensive.
        mynameishere 3y ago
        No, it isn't. Most people pay about that much for their cable. For the bottom 20 percent, yes, it is a budget-buster. However, that is beside the point. Believe me, I hate explaining simple, simple things--but the person I was responding to is probably comfortably middle or upper-middle class and could afford a miserable 2000/year on a doctor. He doesn't have to become "rich enough", and almost 100 percent of the people in this thread don't have to either.
- wredue 3y ago
  This is not true. I mean, the wait times sometimes are, but they vary by province. More conservative provinces have worse wait times. That is not surprising given that the provincial conservative government are all actively attempting to sabotage public healthcare so we can move to an American style system. A system where we will all pay more, and still see similar wait times anyway. MAID is not actively proposed as a way to save resources.
  - bennettnate5 3y ago
    > More conservative provinces have worse wait times. This feels like a pretty glaring generalization. If we look at the actual data, the story becomes a little more nuanced [1]. "Conservative" provinces have wait times that are a couple of days to a couple of weeks higher than national average (assuming we call BC, AB, SK and MB "conservative" [2]), but then again almost all of the maritimes provinces (which are considered strongly liberal-leaning) have abysmally bad wait times relative to the average (10-20 weeks worse). Overall, the average is ~half a year anyways, which is pretty rough regardless. [1] - https://www.fraserinstitute.org/file/waiting-your-turn-2021-infographic-provinces-updatedjpg https://www.fraserinstitute.org/file/waiting-your-turn-2021-... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election, "Results by province and territory
    - wredue 3y ago
      AB, SK and MB are conservative with high rates of Trump flags. And nice lies dude. They all have over double the national average! Don’t use Fraser institute for sources. They are a far right “think” tank. If they posted it, it’s a lie or misrepresentation.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Favorably comparing the US health system to the Canadian one is an interesting take indeed…
  - kbutler 3y ago
    I know people in Canada who come to the US for healthcare (better care for specialties, shorter wait times). I'm not aware of the reverse (admittedly, that would require more than just $$).
    - vkou 3y ago
      And Americans go to Mexico for healthcare, I'm not aware of the reverse, I guess that means Mexico has the best healthcare in the world.
      - kbutler 3y ago
        I actually drove someone across the border from Mexico to the U.S. for healthcare (voluntourism injury). The reason to go to Mexico is price. The reason to go to the U.S. is quality. How about for Canada vs the U.S.? If you're a Canadian citizen, Canadian healthcare is cheaper, but generally has much longer wait times. U.S. healthcare is much more expensive, but much more quickly available, and specialty care (e.g., rare disease treatment) is much better.
        kbutler 3y ago
        Then there's this - When a woman went to the hospital for help with suicidal ideation, a clinician told her the waits to see a psychiatrist are long, "the system is broken", and "have you considered [assisted suicide?]...MAID would be a more “comfortable” process during which she would be given sedating benzodiazepines among other drugs." She will be able to see a psychiatrist "when one is available in the fall." https://web.archive.org/web/20230809170345/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-maid-suicide-patient-vancouver/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230809170345/https://www.thegl...
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  I live in the US. I am a software engineer making more than a half a million annually. I have access to tremendous resources and can advocate for myself and my family. I live in a college town because of my wife's career. It is not a big city, but is also not rural middle of nowhere. Getting a routine gynecological appointment for my wife any time in the next six months is impossible. I gave up on trying to get an appointment with an allergist for myself, even after getting a referral. What you describe is common in the US too, even for those with means. I cannot imagine what it is like for somebody who doesn't have money and insurance.
  - daddylongstroke 3y ago
    Well, no need to imagine any longer my friend. I have neither money nor insurance. My experience is identical to yours...other than that whole allergist thing. That's not something I would seek out answers on, as it is simple to figure out at home, and when you do get to an allergist, you will likely hear something very useless like "yeah you're allergic to at least some degree to these 17-25 different things; please try to limit exposure". :-D
  - nunez 3y ago
    Preach. I wanted to get a sleep study done to get to the bottom of my occasional insomnia. My PCP at the time put in the pulmonologist referral (because this hospital network required a referral to get a sleep study done, which is insane in its own right, but that's neither here nor there). This was in January. His next available appointment? March! For a friggin sleep study! And I have a HDHP + HSA and was going to pay full boat! (He also prescribed me with an antipsychotic that can double as a sleep aid at low dosages, which I didn't take because five minutes of research into it made it obvious that taking that for extended periods of time is bad news bears. I stopped seeing him after that.) (For those looking for answers like I was, I eventually stumbled upon Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, or CBT-I. It's essentially a rigid sliding window-style sleep schedule plus challenge therapy to make you rethink how you approach sleep. I've been doing this for six months now and it has been transformational. Best part? No meds!)
    - 3y ago
- vkou 3y ago
  If you think waiting for months is a Canada-only problem, you clearly haven't tried to get a specialist appointment[1] in much of the US. And that's with good insurance. [1] Or shit, even a PCP that accepts new patients.
formerly_proven 3y ago
> In US healthcare you have to be your own advocate and be willing to push. The system breaks down if you don't have a routine and obvious illness. 100% the same thing on this side of the pond, US healthcare isn’t special here.
danielfoster 3y ago
How is this problem specific to the US? I live in Germany and hear exactly the same problem of needing to be your own advocate in northern Europe.
- emerongi 3y ago
  Also in Europe and most doctors just want to get you out of the office. I've met only a few doctors who actually care and will work with you to figure out the issue. The equivalent in software engineering would be waiting for my client to tell me what line to change in what file. To be fair, doctors are usually overworked and on a human level I understand that the system is a bit broken, but it's still infuriating when it's your health that is suffering.
  - NovaDudely 3y ago
    The internal term is "Treat and street". Get them out on the street as quick as possible .
    - getwiththeprog 3y ago
      You got the street - the treat is some yummy meds.
  - KineticLensman 3y ago
    I had this when I got shingles on my neck. I hadn’t even got through the door when the doctor had made the diagnosis based on eyeballing my obvious visual symptoms. She was right as it happened but it was my fastest ever doctors visit
smsm42 3y ago
It's not specific to the US. It's the problem of doctors seeing every particular patient for literally minutes and having zero incentive to dig deeper. 90% of the problems are of the nature that is either covered by standard remedies or will pass by itself with time. If you have one of the 10%, you need to have good luck to encounter an extra-ordinary doctor that would take personal interest in your problem, usually while all incentives point to "give the standard answer and move on" behavior.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  I once had extended work done at a dentist. It took a few hours, some of which involved sitting around and waiting for things to happen. It gave me a new perspective on that kind of work. From my/our point of view, I was the most important person in the room and my problems really really matter. From the doctor or dentists POV, I'm one a long long list of people they're seeing that day. It's a health care production line, and even if they have the inclination to be equally caring about everyone - which is a rare quality, because a good medical professionals are only in it for the money - they just don't have the time. This is not an excuse unprofessional behaviour. But it made me realise that self-advocacy works because you're asking - maybe demanding - more than the production line gives you by default. Also, medicine is incredibly complicated. And the research is often very low quality. And that's not taking into account Big Pharma trying to tout its products, whether or not they're suitable or effective. The most depressing thing recently has been the professional response to Covid. In the UK countless doctors have aggressively given up masking, even in settings with immunocompromised patients. It's really made it obvious that some doctors are just in it for the money, a good few are phoning it in, surprisingly many have quite irrational beliefs, and the caring expert professionals are much rarer than they should be.
- kortilla 3y ago
  >extra-ordinary It’s just “extraordinary”.
- chmod600 3y ago
  While there's some truth here, medical diagnosis and treatment can be really hard. People have weird habits, weird diets, are exposed to weird chemicals in small amounts over extended periods of time, etc. There are all kinds of genetic factors where something can be really minor for most people and debilitating for others. There are all kinds or problems or diseases that people can have, and there can be weird combinations that interact or provide an overall confusing array of symptoms. And it's all mixed up with the patient's brain, which may be exacerbating or compensating in all kinds of ways (psychologically or through behaviors that the patient develops).
webmobdev 3y ago
That sounds very much like someone I know. She had pain in her stomach that doctors in the US just refused to examine in depth. One prescribed her pain-killers and another steroid. She asked more tests but they declined. Her father is a doctor in India and when she finally told him (after a few months of suffering) about her ordeal, he asked her to come immediately to India. After some reluctance, she flew down, and the first thing they did after reviewing her reports was a simple ultrasound. They discovered a tumour in her stomach. Operated and removed it and luckily it was not cancerous. The irony is that when her father asked her to come down to India, she refused initially arguing that the US was at the forefront of medical science in the world. She now understands that doctors matter too. (And unfortunately doctor behaviour in the US is very much influenced by insurance provider policies).
- Sai_ 3y ago
  100%. I’m in India now after years in the US. Indian doctors I’ve interacted with (for my kid) are just better at empathy and analysis. It may be because they see a wider range of illnesses and this empathy/awareness might not work well with the patients are of varying ethnicity and race but they’re pretty good if you look past the exterior - shabby offices, gruff manner.
- WWLink 3y ago
  That's pretty funny because every time I've interacted with a stomach doctor, it pretty much went from introducing themselves to the patient (one time myself) to "let's get you scheduled for an EGD and/or a colonoscopy!" That's with 3 different people and a handful of different doctors. They are actually pretty eager to look inside your stomach out here heheh. I'm really sorry to hear that happened to your friend though! I hope they're doing better now!
jahewson 3y ago
I moved from the U.K. to the US and the situation is even worse in the UK. Unless you’re bleeding or have cancer it’s basically “please go away”.
- no_butterscotch 3y ago
  So much he said she said is the UK better than us with healthcare or not?!
  - Turskarama 3y ago
    It's better in that it's free, but it's been defunded so much that it's beginning to fall apart. Private healthcare is basically broken out the gate, public healthcare can be much better but it still does need to be funded.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      I would say it’s been defunded relative to the expected pensioner to worker ratio. Much of Europe went wild assuming that we would always have 5 to 7 workers per person retired to care for, and I won’t be surprised if we get down to 1 to 2 in the next 50 years. That’s a type of system collapse people aren’t prepared for.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jl6 3y ago
    If it were possible to answer that with a simple yes or a no, it wouldn’t be such a perennial debate. Clearly both systems have benefits and drawbacks.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      It's a perrenial debate due to ideology, not actual stats. The UK, despite the struggles the NIH has with.... everything, still has better outcomes than the US. This is JUST "outcomes" btw, as the UK also rates significantly higher than the US in "access to care". The US also has nearly twice as many "deaths that could be prevented by timely access to healthcare". The main complaint about the UK system that people quote is "it takes a while to see a doctor" but that's true about most people here in the US as well. If you have not top-line insurance or live in a slightly rural area or a million other things.
TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
I had a sudden onset of extreme pain 2 years and 3 months ago. I've seen 13 doctors in this time, had 2 major surgeries and lots of different therapies, and this one of my main takeaways. In our system, you are forced to become a "general contractor" of your health. I understand the nature of my problem, and I've had a lot of improvement, but I'm still nailing down the particular patholog(ies). The doctors that stand out are the ones who take the time to review your records, and come to the appointment prepared. I've had two. I blame the insurance companies for extracting more and more profit from the system, causing doctors to spend just as little time as possible on, you know, something as silly as patients.

Etrnl_President 3y ago

Now imagine doing this on Canadian healthcare, having to wait months or years for each appointment, and nowadays they try to talk you into MAID to save resources…

DropInIn 3y ago
No one is talking anyone into going the MAID route, that's just some far right conservative party bs. Really, you just engaged in deception and promulgation of propaganda intended to push people toward neofascist ideology. Shame on you.
canucker2016 3y ago
MAID == Medical assistance in dying (assisted suicide) Went from nothing/reluctance to popular for some segments of the population
mikeyouse 3y ago
I know HN is a privileged place but people should recognize that the “worst case” of Canadian/European healthcare wait times is already the reality for many if not most Americans.. You shouldn’t base your understanding of American health care on personal experience if you work for a big company that provides a nice health insurance plan.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  I have jank government insurance and this is not true. When I got out of prison and had no insurance I went to the city's clinics. Wait times have never been an issue (at most was two weeks for specialist). The doctors in the clinic were also friggin amazing doctors/people. I had a ton of shame around getting out of prison, some much shame about needing to get tests ran for HIV/Hep from being in prison but they were so good about it all (all came out negative so woohoo). Now dentists...when we had money we went to a family friend. He still totally f'd us and did unnecessary work. It's only now that I have a cash only country dentist that I trust my dentist again. Crazy part is the cash only dentist ends up being cheaper than my previous copay/premiums insurance dentists.
  - tyg13 3y ago
    I'm always surprised when people leave comments like these, based on nothing but N=1 anecdata. You don't have any authority to say something like "this is not true" with regards to the whole of the American healthcare experience. Compared to my own personal experience, yours was uncommonly-good. Wait times for specialists for my SO's heart condition are routinely several months out.
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      What this demonstrates is that wait times are widely variable by specialty and region. Arguments like "for most Americans" are wrong on their face, because most Americans don't live in the same area or have the same issues. My wife and I have both had to see various specialists. Some had very long wait times, many didn't, and of those that did, we were (fortunately) able to call around to different clinics to find one that wasn't too bad.
      - DropInIn 3y ago
        "Most" comes from the actual data The exceptions are part of that data set Really...
    - giantg2 3y ago
      To be fair, their statement of n=1 is more evidence than the other person posted (comment without any evidence). Although both are weak.
jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
Yeah that's a hyperbolic exaggeration.
momirlan 3y ago
Absolutely true, and that is if you even have a family doctor to refer you to a specialist. For those who had the luck to lose their family doctor (mine through retirement), it is impossible to find one that takes new patients. Many retired during covid, many more only work part time. The Canadian health care is a disaster at this point, and those who have a family doctor have no clue how awful this is.
- smsm42 3y ago
  In the US it's not easy to find a primary care provider also. When we moved couple of years ago and called a local medical center to establish a primary care provider, we were given answers like "we have the nearest appointments in 6-8 months". If you have something urgent, there's telemedicine line where you can talk to advice nurse or if there's something really urgent, get an appointment with an urgent care doctor. But all primary care providers seem to be booked solid for months. And given how many patients they'd have and how often they see each one, establishing any kind of personal care relationship is out of the question. How personal can it be if you can see you doctor twice a year for 20 minutes? I think the only solution is go get rich enough so you can afford personal concierge doctors or however it is called (no idea since I'm not rich enough).
  - mynameishere 3y ago
    rich enough so you can afford personal concierge A few minutes research suggests it's not that expensive. (As little as ~2000/year).
    - 20after4 3y ago
      For most people, that's expensive.
      - mynameishere 3y ago
        No, it isn't. Most people pay about that much for their cable. For the bottom 20 percent, yes, it is a budget-buster. However, that is beside the point. Believe me, I hate explaining simple, simple things--but the person I was responding to is probably comfortably middle or upper-middle class and could afford a miserable 2000/year on a doctor. He doesn't have to become "rich enough", and almost 100 percent of the people in this thread don't have to either.
wredue 3y ago
This is not true. I mean, the wait times sometimes are, but they vary by province. More conservative provinces have worse wait times. That is not surprising given that the provincial conservative government are all actively attempting to sabotage public healthcare so we can move to an American style system. A system where we will all pay more, and still see similar wait times anyway. MAID is not actively proposed as a way to save resources.
- bennettnate5 3y ago
  > More conservative provinces have worse wait times. This feels like a pretty glaring generalization. If we look at the actual data, the story becomes a little more nuanced [1]. "Conservative" provinces have wait times that are a couple of days to a couple of weeks higher than national average (assuming we call BC, AB, SK and MB "conservative" [2]), but then again almost all of the maritimes provinces (which are considered strongly liberal-leaning) have abysmally bad wait times relative to the average (10-20 weeks worse). Overall, the average is ~half a year anyways, which is pretty rough regardless. [1] - https://www.fraserinstitute.org/file/waiting-your-turn-2021-infographic-provinces-updatedjpg https://www.fraserinstitute.org/file/waiting-your-turn-2021-... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election, "Results by province and territory
  - wredue 3y ago
    AB, SK and MB are conservative with high rates of Trump flags. And nice lies dude. They all have over double the national average! Don’t use Fraser institute for sources. They are a far right “think” tank. If they posted it, it’s a lie or misrepresentation.
littlestymaar 3y ago
Favorably comparing the US health system to the Canadian one is an interesting take indeed…
- kbutler 3y ago
  I know people in Canada who come to the US for healthcare (better care for specialties, shorter wait times). I'm not aware of the reverse (admittedly, that would require more than just $$).
  - vkou 3y ago
    And Americans go to Mexico for healthcare, I'm not aware of the reverse, I guess that means Mexico has the best healthcare in the world.
    - kbutler 3y ago
      I actually drove someone across the border from Mexico to the U.S. for healthcare (voluntourism injury). The reason to go to Mexico is price. The reason to go to the U.S. is quality. How about for Canada vs the U.S.? If you're a Canadian citizen, Canadian healthcare is cheaper, but generally has much longer wait times. U.S. healthcare is much more expensive, but much more quickly available, and specialty care (e.g., rare disease treatment) is much better.
      - kbutler 3y ago
        Then there's this - When a woman went to the hospital for help with suicidal ideation, a clinician told her the waits to see a psychiatrist are long, "the system is broken", and "have you considered [assisted suicide?]...MAID would be a more “comfortable” process during which she would be given sedating benzodiazepines among other drugs." She will be able to see a psychiatrist "when one is available in the fall." https://web.archive.org/web/20230809170345/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-maid-suicide-patient-vancouver/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230809170345/https://www.thegl...
UncleMeat 3y ago
I live in the US. I am a software engineer making more than a half a million annually. I have access to tremendous resources and can advocate for myself and my family. I live in a college town because of my wife's career. It is not a big city, but is also not rural middle of nowhere. Getting a routine gynecological appointment for my wife any time in the next six months is impossible. I gave up on trying to get an appointment with an allergist for myself, even after getting a referral. What you describe is common in the US too, even for those with means. I cannot imagine what it is like for somebody who doesn't have money and insurance.
- daddylongstroke 3y ago
  Well, no need to imagine any longer my friend. I have neither money nor insurance. My experience is identical to yours...other than that whole allergist thing. That's not something I would seek out answers on, as it is simple to figure out at home, and when you do get to an allergist, you will likely hear something very useless like "yeah you're allergic to at least some degree to these 17-25 different things; please try to limit exposure". :-D
- nunez 3y ago
  Preach. I wanted to get a sleep study done to get to the bottom of my occasional insomnia. My PCP at the time put in the pulmonologist referral (because this hospital network required a referral to get a sleep study done, which is insane in its own right, but that's neither here nor there). This was in January. His next available appointment? March! For a friggin sleep study! And I have a HDHP + HSA and was going to pay full boat! (He also prescribed me with an antipsychotic that can double as a sleep aid at low dosages, which I didn't take because five minutes of research into it made it obvious that taking that for extended periods of time is bad news bears. I stopped seeing him after that.) (For those looking for answers like I was, I eventually stumbled upon Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, or CBT-I. It's essentially a rigid sliding window-style sleep schedule plus challenge therapy to make you rethink how you approach sleep. I've been doing this for six months now and it has been transformational. Best part? No meds!)
  - 3y ago
vkou 3y ago
If you think waiting for months is a Canada-only problem, you clearly haven't tried to get a specialist appointment[1] in much of the US. And that's with good insurance. [1] Or shit, even a PCP that accepts new patients.

formerly_proven 3y ago

> In US healthcare you have to be your own advocate and be willing to push. The system breaks down if you don't have a routine and obvious illness. 100% the same thing on this side of the pond, US healthcare isn’t special here.

danielfoster 3y ago

How is this problem specific to the US? I live in Germany and hear exactly the same problem of needing to be your own advocate in northern Europe.

emerongi 3y ago
Also in Europe and most doctors just want to get you out of the office. I've met only a few doctors who actually care and will work with you to figure out the issue. The equivalent in software engineering would be waiting for my client to tell me what line to change in what file. To be fair, doctors are usually overworked and on a human level I understand that the system is a bit broken, but it's still infuriating when it's your health that is suffering.
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  The internal term is "Treat and street". Get them out on the street as quick as possible .
  - getwiththeprog 3y ago
    You got the street - the treat is some yummy meds.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
  I had this when I got shingles on my neck. I hadn’t even got through the door when the doctor had made the diagnosis based on eyeballing my obvious visual symptoms. She was right as it happened but it was my fastest ever doctors visit

smsm42 3y ago

It's not specific to the US. It's the problem of doctors seeing every particular patient for literally minutes and having zero incentive to dig deeper. 90% of the problems are of the nature that is either covered by standard remedies or will pass by itself with time. If you have one of the 10%, you need to have good luck to encounter an extra-ordinary doctor that would take personal interest in your problem, usually while all incentives point to "give the standard answer and move on" behavior.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
I once had extended work done at a dentist. It took a few hours, some of which involved sitting around and waiting for things to happen. It gave me a new perspective on that kind of work. From my/our point of view, I was the most important person in the room and my problems really really matter. From the doctor or dentists POV, I'm one a long long list of people they're seeing that day. It's a health care production line, and even if they have the inclination to be equally caring about everyone - which is a rare quality, because a good medical professionals are only in it for the money - they just don't have the time. This is not an excuse unprofessional behaviour. But it made me realise that self-advocacy works because you're asking - maybe demanding - more than the production line gives you by default. Also, medicine is incredibly complicated. And the research is often very low quality. And that's not taking into account Big Pharma trying to tout its products, whether or not they're suitable or effective. The most depressing thing recently has been the professional response to Covid. In the UK countless doctors have aggressively given up masking, even in settings with immunocompromised patients. It's really made it obvious that some doctors are just in it for the money, a good few are phoning it in, surprisingly many have quite irrational beliefs, and the caring expert professionals are much rarer than they should be.
kortilla 3y ago
>extra-ordinary It’s just “extraordinary”.
chmod600 3y ago
While there's some truth here, medical diagnosis and treatment can be really hard. People have weird habits, weird diets, are exposed to weird chemicals in small amounts over extended periods of time, etc. There are all kinds of genetic factors where something can be really minor for most people and debilitating for others. There are all kinds or problems or diseases that people can have, and there can be weird combinations that interact or provide an overall confusing array of symptoms. And it's all mixed up with the patient's brain, which may be exacerbating or compensating in all kinds of ways (psychologically or through behaviors that the patient develops).

webmobdev 3y ago

That sounds very much like someone I know. She had pain in her stomach that doctors in the US just refused to examine in depth. One prescribed her pain-killers and another steroid. She asked more tests but they declined. Her father is a doctor in India and when she finally told him (after a few months of suffering) about her ordeal, he asked her to come immediately to India. After some reluctance, she flew down, and the first thing they did after reviewing her reports was a simple ultrasound. They discovered a tumour in her stomach. Operated and removed it and luckily it was not cancerous. The irony is that when her father asked her to come down to India, she refused initially arguing that the US was at the forefront of medical science in the world. She now understands that doctors matter too. (And unfortunately doctor behaviour in the US is very much influenced by insurance provider policies).

Sai_ 3y ago
100%. I’m in India now after years in the US. Indian doctors I’ve interacted with (for my kid) are just better at empathy and analysis. It may be because they see a wider range of illnesses and this empathy/awareness might not work well with the patients are of varying ethnicity and race but they’re pretty good if you look past the exterior - shabby offices, gruff manner.
WWLink 3y ago
That's pretty funny because every time I've interacted with a stomach doctor, it pretty much went from introducing themselves to the patient (one time myself) to "let's get you scheduled for an EGD and/or a colonoscopy!" That's with 3 different people and a handful of different doctors. They are actually pretty eager to look inside your stomach out here heheh. I'm really sorry to hear that happened to your friend though! I hope they're doing better now!

jahewson 3y ago

I moved from the U.K. to the US and the situation is even worse in the UK. Unless you’re bleeding or have cancer it’s basically “please go away”.

no_butterscotch 3y ago
So much he said she said is the UK better than us with healthcare or not?!
- Turskarama 3y ago
  It's better in that it's free, but it's been defunded so much that it's beginning to fall apart. Private healthcare is basically broken out the gate, public healthcare can be much better but it still does need to be funded.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    I would say it’s been defunded relative to the expected pensioner to worker ratio. Much of Europe went wild assuming that we would always have 5 to 7 workers per person retired to care for, and I won’t be surprised if we get down to 1 to 2 in the next 50 years. That’s a type of system collapse people aren’t prepared for.
- deleted 3y ago
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- jl6 3y ago
  If it were possible to answer that with a simple yes or a no, it wouldn’t be such a perennial debate. Clearly both systems have benefits and drawbacks.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    It's a perrenial debate due to ideology, not actual stats. The UK, despite the struggles the NIH has with.... everything, still has better outcomes than the US. This is JUST "outcomes" btw, as the UK also rates significantly higher than the US in "access to care". The US also has nearly twice as many "deaths that could be prevented by timely access to healthcare". The main complaint about the UK system that people quote is "it takes a while to see a doctor" but that's true about most people here in the US as well. If you have not top-line insurance or live in a slightly rural area or a million other things.

TheRealDunkirk 3y ago

I had a sudden onset of extreme pain 2 years and 3 months ago. I've seen 13 doctors in this time, had 2 major surgeries and lots of different therapies, and this one of my main takeaways. In our system, you are forced to become a "general contractor" of your health. I understand the nature of my problem, and I've had a lot of improvement, but I'm still nailing down the particular patholog(ies). The doctors that stand out are the ones who take the time to review your records, and come to the appointment prepared. I've had two. I blame the insurance companies for extracting more and more profit from the system, causing doctors to spend just as little time as possible on, you know, something as silly as patients.