Does anyone feel that doctors don't have a clue?

iPoop said...
What's going through the minds of our doctors when we meet with them? Here's some pretty good insight. This was last posted to the forum in June 2013, so some of you might remember it from before.

http://more-distractible.org/musings/2010/07/14/a-letter-to-patients-with-chronic-disease

A good rebuttal to that letter.

Don't be fooled by the angelic vision of doctors portrayed in shows like House, Scrubs or ER. The harsh reality is that that these guys are every bit as prone to making mistakes as the random guy you can pick off the street. The only difference is that doctors cannot be held accountable for their mistakes, even if they end up systematically killing their patients. This is often the case when you look at the adverse reaction statistics. Doctors are also among the most protected individuals on the planet, and it's difficult to muster any malpractice lawsuit against them. I despise lawyers, but lawyers cannot possibly kill you or do permanent harm to your body the way doctors can.

There are good doctors and there are bad doctors. I've found that 95% of mainstream doctors do not have enough education on the drugs they prescribe. They get their drug information from pharmaceutical reps who have zero training in medicine. They utilize a one-size fits all philosophy with medicines that dishonors our individual needs. For example, people who have certain genetic polymorphisms will have trouble metabolizing some medications.

I approach doctors the same way I would a politician. Take everything they say with a grain of salt. It's a red flag when a doctor tells you something like "this medicine will fix you right up". It's another red flag if your doctor is overweight and giving you dietary advice. Bolt and run when a doctor gives you sleeping pills or antidepressants instead of telling you to manage stress or eat the right way.

To Searchin4ACure: This lecture by Jerry Brunetti will rip your world apart the same way it did to mine. I encourage you to watch it to get a better sense of what you can do to recover from the ravages of your disease. He survived and beat cancer through unconventional means. Had he taken the same old mustard gas derivatives suggested by his doctors, he would not be alive today.

Post Edited (StealthGuardian) : 11/13/2013 10:32:18 AM (GMT-7)

StealthGuardian, you have a bad link for the letter. I'm always interested in different points of view, whether or not I agree.

KeepMovingForward,

Sorry if my comment on depression offended you. I didn't mean to imply that there was a one size fits all approach to depression - only that there are some commonly overlooked areas that mainstream medicine seems to throw out of the window in favor of drugging the patient. My gripe is only with the medical machine; not with the people who have to suffer.

I sympathize with anyone going through depression because it's not easy. Having been depressed the majority of my life, I know the pain that it brings. I was told that my depression was hereditary, which meant that it wasn't subject to further investigation and drugs would be the first option to treat it. I fully accepted the explanation at the behest of my medically "inclined" family.

Unfortunately, everything I was told by the medical establishment turned out to be incorrect and largely unsupported by science. There is no objective way to measure depression, and there's absolutely no way that doctors should diagnose and treat patients on the spot. Many times, it becomes the hunch of some unqualified doctor and they dispense out pills like candy.

During my struggle with depression, I found out that my case had everything to do with nutritional deficiencies and nothing with the so-called hereditary mechanisms that my doctors suggested. My cholesterol and vitamin D levels were low to the point where it put me at high suicide risk. I can't say the same for everyone else, but there are many things that correlate well to depression that need to be explored before taking pills.

As for lawyers, well I don't hate them that much :P. As they say, the enemy of my enemy is a friend.