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It's unfortunate that medical care has become almost adversarial. Our system is set up to treat acute conditions, but most people are being seen for chronic pro
by SoftwareMaven 12y ago
It's unfortunate that medical care has become almost adversarial. Our system is set up to treat acute conditions, but most people are being seen for chronic problems and our understanding of causes and training for treatments of chronic problems is woeful at best. Worse, both patients and doctors want a pill to make everything better.
After dealing with poor health for 30 years; I finally took my health into my own hands. After a series of self-experiments and a lot of journal reading, I now feel like I'm finally reaching health, but every time I see a doctor, it's the same battle ("OMG, your cholesterol is 239; you are a dead man walking!" Yeah, I don't think so).
There is a lot of good information out there, but there is also a lot of complete crap, and doctors have to deal with truly informed people as well as people who only think they are informed. Worse, much of their continuing education is not much more than paid infomercials, making it hard to trust they are getting truly balanced information.
Add to all of this the fact that you have seven minutes with your doctor to work it all out, and it is failing.
There are a few things that can be done, IMO, to help:
1. The AHA, ADA, AMA, AND and other medical organizations need to stop taking so much money from corporate sponsors.
2. Education about and treatment of chronic conditions need to be treated very differently than acute conditions. The treatment for Type 2 diabetes should not default to Metformin.
3. We need more time with doctors to work on treatment plans that can be carried out.
4. Medical school and continuing education needs far more, unbiased education about the value/dangers of nutrition, environmental contaminants, etc, in chronic disease. Alzheimer's prevention starts in a person's 30's[1].
Unfortunately, we see the same kind of care given for stiches as for metabolic syndrome. And it's not working.
1. Based on a current hypothesis that it is the effect of "Type 3" diabetes.
- kaybe 12y agoThere is metamed which can help you with the research. It seems to have helped at least some people. https://www.metamed.com/ https://www.metamed.com/ (Found a long time ago via LessWrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gvi/metamed_evidencebased_healthcare/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/gvi/metamed_evidencebased_healthcare...)
- ceejayoz 12y agoThought I remembered the name of this one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296694 One of their first medical advisors was a disbarred doc who lost his license for writing online pharmacy prescriptions. I'd do some serious research into credentials before throwing in the $5-50k they charge. They also had a "health researcher" whose primary credentials were "eagle scout": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5296724
- hawkice 12y agoSo, obviously you can't retroactively become professional, but it looks like they've cleaned up their act since then. https://www.metamed.com/ScientistsDoctorsResearchers https://www.metamed.com/ScientistsDoctorsResearchers They have a Chief Medical Officer, and all but one of the researchers is an M.D. -- the guy who was ordered to suspend his medical license is gone, and so is the eagle scout.