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Medical professionals: how much faith do you have in them?..
Posted by Alcomum • 6/16/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: care, depression, doctors, health, mental health, nurses, psychiatric
...because I swear to God I can't figure out if it is them or me. But one of us is completely bloody thick.
alcomum.blogspot.com/2009/06/tuesday.html
User Comments
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I don't have much difficulty understanding my medical doctors, or my homeopath or my alternative health care providers either. I have found that there are excellent health information sources on the internet and support sites for various conditions too. I have used many reputable sites to educate myself about my conditions and about treatments too.
Did you know that so many people are turning to the internet for health information that there’s now a word to describe people who frequently go to the Web for a diagnosis of their ailments - cyberchondriacs?
lol ... I'm not among them.
I just read the latest Pew Institute report on the social impact of the internet on health care. According to a new report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation, 61% of adults look online for health information. Wow! is it ever an interesting report.
http://thistimethisspace. com/2009/06/14/the-social-impact-of-the-internet-on-health-care/-
self diagnosers....
i would be careful with that... honestly if you can't put faith in one health care professional then use multiple healthcare professionals and tell them all what the others said... because often there can be quite discrete details in a diagnosis that can effect your health in an adverse way.
i would says its best to:
1. get multiple opinions
2. talk about the implications
3. choose whats best for you
4. get multiple opinions to make sure there are no medication/ treatment and lifestyle conflicts
5.keep a running dialog
if your health professional doesn't know everything they couldn't possibly treat you properly
and most people wouldn't be able to tell between the slight variations in conditions or the symptoms to look for let alone knowing what is a symptom and what isn't
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I don't trust regular doctors. I had an experience where one yelled at me after I wouldn't take insulin shots. I was trying to figure out how the whole sugar thing worked when I was pregnant. They told me there was no other way and when I got my sugars normal they left me alone.
Now my husband is experiencing the same thing.
I think they have too much to gain from the pharmaceutical companies.-
Not unless they have shares
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It's all about money at the end of the day. -
Money is not everything
Yet, money is everything -
haha how profound
@shiley they were probably yelling at you because it was irrisponsible to be playing with your sugar levels when you were pregnant. you could have been hurt or worse you could have hurt your baby
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Not completely trustworthy of the doctors as I have had some bad experiences with several misdiagnosis, etc., but I think they are just part of the "whole" that is the problem. Too much insurance, too much liability and too much paperwork, etc. can make them edgey too I suppose. -
I have sen a lot of cynicism on various sites about the influence of pharmaceutical companies on doctors' advice - interesting to see that raised again.
The problem I am having right now is that the advice I am given seems to conflict. On the one hand I'm being told "take it easy and don't expect things to change right away" and on the other I'm being told "yeah you need to change that. now. DO IT."
And I just can't
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currently waiting with trepidation for the social worker who is coming to see me post hospital treatment to "take a full social history"...
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zero -
I trust that their experience and training will lead to an accurate and helpful result, but keep in mind the need to be an educated consumer. I also get second opinions from other professionals when dealing with something critical. I have also learned in the USA to recognize the difference between the need for tests as opposed to "got to cover my arse" tests the doctors want me to take.-
I agree re: tests. Last year, my doctor recommended a battery of tests with the phrase, "It's probably nothing, but"...
We are also careful about the information we give our physicians and only go when we haven't been able to solve a medical problem through other means.
So, I guess as a family, we are *skeptical*.
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I think there is a spectrum of trust in my life:
Trust level 0:
Faith healers, new-age practitioners, chakra sorters, the latest trendy "thing" like your blood group or eye colour defines your treatment.
Trust level 1: "eat this" and "don't eat that" regimens that cannot prove a sound scientific basis for efficacy.
Trust level 2: old trendy things that have hung around long enough to have been studied and vetted through the scientific method like acupuncture, homeopathy
Trust level 3: people who have been to medical school and who, as a result, have a greater understanding than I do about how the body works, how the disease process works, and how chemicals and treatments interact and work.
Trust level 4: Trust level 3 people who have spent time learning about specific conditions and gaining specialized knowledge about them. -
Survived my "interview with social services". Social worker actually very nice and seemed quite switched on - unusual for anyone in my team.
Check out latest post - am leaving a link as this is Shameless Blog Promotion plus related to my original OP:
alcomum.blogspot.com/2009/06/bit-more-about-where-i-came-from-part-2.html
@Sweet Violet - I like your train of thought. Though in my experience, those falling into level 3 and even some level 4 still tend to know very little/make a lot of presumptions about mental ill-health, self-harm etc.-
Doctors are not magicians and we do both them and ourselves a disservice by expecting omniscience from them.
Nobody is perfect...every medical school has to graduate half of its students in the bottom 50% of the class...and we have no way of knowing where our doctors fell in the class lineup.
Sometimes we present a baffling array of symptoms and the doctor has to puzzle out which ones are significant, which ones are not. Sometimes we don't take their advice or we don't understand it or we misinterpret it.
All I am saying is that before we start demeaning our doctors or the medical profession in general, we have to first acknowledge their humanity and fallibility as human beings, and then recognize that, whatever their shortcomings, they have more knowledge...and access to more helpful information...than those who would try to supplant them. -
I don't know...
I'm a lawyer. If I make presumptions, it can be very damaging and/or costly to a client. And if I were to appear dismissive of a client's needs/wants, I would lose them and not be able to pay my mortgage. So I don't make presumptions. And I think it is ok not to know some very specialist stuff, so in that case I go and look it up. I am honest with my clients about that. I learned in university that law isn't about knowing everything - it is about knowing where to find everything. And I do. And people appreciate it.
I have certainly got a lot more value and felt more valued by the small minority of doctors over the last number of years who say "let me check this out" or "let's try this, but we will have to see how it goes" than the ones who tell me I'll be fine after a good night's sleep and think that self-harm is either attention-seeking or a suicide attempt. And at that level, while I appreciate they are human, they are humans who should know better.
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off to see my own GP tomorrow for first time since discharged last Thur. will see what that yields. will keep an open mind. will remember he is human. will breathe. will take the precription for drugs...
will let you know how it goes!
Nite xox
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