Maybe I was spoiled as a youth. Perhaps I had a mystic doctor that knew all kinds of secret rituals that allowed him to heal me on a fairly frequent basis, usually on the first go.
Today, those secret rituals, known to the laymen as “tests” have fallen out of fashion, and Doctors instead ask the patient pointless questions like, “how long has this been a problem, and what were you doing when it happened?” Now, I know some of you are going to say, those are important questions. And I agree, to a point. But wouldn’t it be better to say, run some tests before asking some of these questions?
I think too many Doctors anymore may think they are Dr. Greg House from TV. The difference of course being that Dr. House is fictional and deals with people that are dying from mysterious diseases. And he’s fictional. Not real. But he does have a good standing line. “Patients lie.” And maybe that’s the part of the show that the Doctors I’ve been to have been missing.
When I come in with a sore throat don’t start asking me a bunch of dumbass questions about how I feel. Look at my throat. You’ve got the cool flashlight and the wooden sticks, look at the bit of me that is causing problems. Don’t ask how long it’s hurt and then give me a packet of antibiotics and send me on home. Look at the problem pre-diagnosis.
As you can tell I’ve had some issues with the medical profession here recently. And it did remind me of my own childhood experiences. I thought maybe I was just remembering the good old days with a rose colored mind, but I talked to a few other people and discovered I wasn’t alone in my assessment. Granted, my survey was far from scientific, but it did contain some interesting insights.
America has become very hip to taking medication before sorting out if it’s even needed. Just watch TV for a bit or read a magazine and you’ll encounter an ad for some new drug. They won’t tell you what it does, they just say “ask your Dr. if it’s right for you.” And before you know it you have lot’s of people being treated for allergies that they can’t point to and treating an erectile dysfunction they never even noticed before. Followed by the host of medicines needed to tame the side-effects of these drugs they had never even heard of before picking up the latest edition of some golfing magazine. Hey, Prednisone may be right for you. Just ask your doctor.
My doctor actually told me that medicine was trial and error. That makes me nervous. I know that biology is a dodgy field, but shouldn’t we already pretty much know what a drug will treat prior to giving it to someone? And shouldn’t we already know what the problem is prior to treatment? Those two assumptions imply that the bulk of the “trial and error” part should have been played out in some lab months, if not years, ago.
So, my instruction to you folks; don’t ask your doctor if some drug is right for you. And don’t answer any damn questions until your doctor has actually looked at your afflicted area. The Patch Adams school of medicine is all well and good for preventative care, but when I’m sick just fix the problem.
End rant.
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