2 ms·

Just because they...err we...have a higher incentive doesn't mean we have a better ability to diagnose. I'd like to think I'm a smart guy (3rd year PhD student

• stcredzero 17y ago
  My girlfriend works in Public Health, and finds herself in the position of correcting doctors' misconceptions about illnesses she is monitoring. Seems like she gets to correct someone who should've known better about once or twice a month. What makes this even more ironic -- as a patient, she has a very difficult time communicating with doctors. When she was in graduate school, she did studies on disparities in health care based on race. Somehow she gets caught up in those mechanisms without seeing the patterns she once studied in grad school. (She's African American, and she constantly has problems convincing doctors that she's not exaggerating the degree of her pain, and at the same time constantly disregarding her doctor's instructions. A couple of days ago, I did a double-take and said, "OMG, a little voice in my head is yelling 'African American Health Disparities!' Do you realize you're living a stereotype?")
• gnaritas 17y ago
  > and I can't tell the difference between a cold, flu, allergies, or mono. Then you haven't had them enough to get to know them well. Get something often enough and you don't need a doctor to tell you which it is, you learn from experience to know exactly which it is.