Printable View
Well, it's not really "wasted", just diverted to the huge medical treatment and drug industry, when it can do better elsewhere. Like all the money the financial industry siphon out of our economy, returning little.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dantheman
Sure you can. They have a lot of power in these situations. But, they aren't truthful, or just plain lie in order to maintain that "system", which they make a decent living from.Quote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
That's exactly it. It all sounds so easy when you are relatively healthy and younger. Hell, I've told my wife that if I get some seriously bad news, I'm taking myself out to the back 20 with a shotgun before we drain our resources. But I've seen resolute men stare death in the face and wildly swing away against reason because its just fucking human nature most of the time. We are all Hunter Thompson or Hemingway in our own minds until it becomes real.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper
Yup, docs are complicit in the whole health care shit show. The only way the drugs, tests and operations are preformed is by doctors orders. Which is exacerbated by the fucking ambulance chasing lawyers. As my doctor friend says, "half of doctors are assholes and don't like people".Quote:
Originally Posted by Benny Profane
I think you missed your calling Bunny.
Well, thank you for that, but, you bring up an important point. Doctors, due to their long, brutal, and expensive education, tend to be sociopaths, very awkward in person to person interactions. Studies have been done. Ever know a pre med in college? They essentially missed that important, formative social experience, and it got worse through med school and residency.Quote:
Originally Posted by skiballs
I don't think it helps that if you're sick and 85+ years old, you probably don't have all your wits about you to make good decisions about your treatment. It's very hard even for people who are young and not suffering from age-related cognitive decline.Quote:
Originally Posted by commonlaw
Doctors are trained to cure. Physicians Assistants are trained to care. My father had a living will with me in charge that didn't allow for dialysis but he fell and his weak kidney failed had a dialysis tube coming out of his neck when he left the OR. I don't think ER Docs spend much time reading the will. Dad called me after 3 years of nursing home and dialysis 3X a week he called me to say he was too tired to go any more. I had to question myself a lot about my role in pulling the plug until I realized my job was to do what he would have done and he never planned ahead or made decisions until he had to. He took each day as it came.Quote:
Originally Posted by Benny Profane
Are the Doctors making the decision to prolong life OR is it the family?
Up here the doctors just practise medicine according to the needs of the patient, they can prolong life according to the wishes of the family but they don't make that call and they don't have to spend their days fucking with insurance companies to get paid they just use their # to bill and they can average 250K a year without trying very hard and no patient gets a bill
the last attending Physician said "your mother has too many things wrong to fix" at which point she couldn't walk couldn't feed herself, couldn't hold down food or water, I forget if Doc had actualy suggested we pull the plug or maybe we had already made the mutual decision amongst the 3 of us but it was Doc's recommendation but not her call
I know it was more emotional for my younger sister and I don't know if she could have made that call to pull the plug herself, I volunteered to do the all nighters just like with my dad, I seem to remember 5 days, the shallow breathing gets stronger and then they stop for 30secs, that process repeats for a bit and she slips away at 2:30 am
its probably best to just go all Inuit style and put the elders adrift on an ice flow eh?
It's more fashionable to claim doctors are part of a larger conspiracy to reupholster their mercs at the expense of the vulnerable. We are all living in the land of anecdote here, but there are many doctors in my family and I know more than a few oncologists that have a singular purpose, and that is to cure people, or at the very least, provide them with as many options as possible and let them make a decision. The oncologists I know deserve to drive whatever the fuck they want. We've seen Benny conflate material possessions with depth of character before dozens of time. It's a convenient way to look at the world, so its hard to blame him I suppose.Quote:
Originally Posted by wooley12
Timely thread. Shit coming to a head as my 83 yr old dad's dementia is really starting to manifest, and age is stripping my 77 yr old mother's ability to compensate for her own insanity.
Even though we all saw it coming for year and years, its really sad to see it all unfold.
My dad took care of my mom her entire adult life and now that he cant even take care of himself, she is totally decompensating.
Fortunately for them, they have enough cash to maintain their sovereignty, but the flip side of that is that she is making impulsive and bad choices, demanding assistance, and doling out abuse to all that are trying to help.
QFTQuote:
Originally Posted by commonlaw
i made a great show of trashing doctors a couple of months ago, but like anything, there are really good ones, good ones and bad ones. I have met some very dedicated people in healthcareQuote:
Originally Posted by Benny Profane
I can say it is not easy on the clinical side. I hope it is rewarding
The GP that insisted on giving my wife a breast exam at every visit was not one of the good ones. That line of mine about doctors curing and PA's caring was said by a PA.
Once again, Benny is full of shit, has had a few anecdotal experienes, probably mortly third hand, and is now an expert.
Are there bad, money hungry MDs out there? sure, but the are the exception not the rule. Most are in the healing arts because they want to heal and help. Sometimes that means doing what the patient wants even if it may not be the wisest financial choice.
Benny is the guy in the bar that is an expert on everything despite the fact he doesn't know shit and everybody keeps moving away from and try to avoid eye contact with.
I can't say that I'd have the strength of character to check myself out like you described. But, I do feel pretty confident that if I were presented with the option of suffering through chemo/radiation/surgery that in all likelihood won't cure me or meaningfully prolong my life, and may in fact kill me on its own, or just letting the disease run its course, I'm going to choose the latter option. In old age anyway, if it happened tomorrow I'd fight tooth and nail.Quote:
Originally Posted by commonlaw
It's ultimately the choice of the patient or their family. But, it is common for doctors to oversell the benefit of a treatment, and downplay the risks and side effects. Not that they commonly do so with any kind of malicious intent, people just want hope and it's hard to tell them that they are going to die no matter what. Benny is right that, when polled, most doctors say they would decline most treatments other than painkillers if confronted with a terminal diagnosis late in life. How many actually do so is an open question.Quote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
"Or as the [2013 JAMA] study’s conclusion put it, “dying patients continue to be hospitalized and subjected to ineffective therapies that erode their quality of life and their personal dignity” while doctors “have a striking personal preference to forego high-intensity care for themselves at the end-of-life and prefer to die gently and naturally.”"
"Sometimes, though, it’s more emotionally comfortable for doctors to simply dole out additional, albeit futile, treatment. “It’s a lot easier for a physician to prescribe one more line of chemotherapy than it is to have a conversation about why you’re stopping therapy,” he said. “I can see how a physician could postpone this conversation and go for one more line of chemo instead of taking a bigger step, doing the heavy lifting and talking about end-of-life.”"
http://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/cen...ctors-die.html
Give me a break, dude. Really. Here, I posted this in polyass. http://ritholtz.com/2017/05/u-s-spen...sweden-canada/ We all have to be reminded of this evry,, oh, six months or so. It's fucking absurd when you look at it. All this churn, all this profit, all those Porsches. And, when's the last time you read about the awful medical care in France, Norway, or, even friggin' bitter old Brexit Britain? Where are the old sick, dying homeless people in Paris, Berlin, or Milan? Those doctors are doing ok, but they ain't driving shiny new Porsches. As it should be.Quote:
Originally Posted by hutash
Physician around the world are doing fine, some are doing better then in the US, and nearly all of them don't have the educational burden and debt US MDs have.
https://journal.practicelink.com/vit...ion-worldwide/
Once again Benny, you are talking out your ass.
There are problems with the US health care system, no argument from me there, physician pay is only a small part of that.
I agree physician pay is only a small part. They are both actors and victims in a treatment based profit system, and, you know, you gotta make a living. But, man, to advise procedures on the dying for, eventually, profit when that same physician wouldn't dream of doing that for himself or his mother is just plain wrong, and immoral.
So whats the hot take on pediatricians? Maybe OB/GYN's? How about regular old family practice doc?Quote:
Originally Posted by Benny Profane
All can easily afford this porche you are so pissed about.
You obviously haven't spent much time around real medical facilities. Nor have any idea what communications go on between MDs and patients/families. Many times these procedures are patient driven, people holding out for that last chance, their only hope. While I, and you, take a real pragmatic approach, many do not, I can't say it's wrong, just not what I would do. We each make our own choices. When an MD may offer such services and procedures, it is the patients choice. It would be malpractice to not offer them ( and have an honest discussion about outcomes.)
"Being Mortal" is a great read for anyone confronting their own or a loved ones mortality
Didn't you recently write this? It seems to contain the answer to the above issue:Quote:
Originally Posted by hutash
Quote:
Originally Posted by hutash
I just wana put it out there that I will do then for freeQuote:
Originally Posted by wooley12
you just need a good advert as attachedQuote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUa5WCu7p8o
IME--both fee for service and salaried medicine--there are certainly docs who overtest and overtreat out of greed, but a more common situation is one in which the financial incentive is subconscious--very few of us a able to resist incentives when they are offered. However, most unnecessary medicine is practiced because it's how doctors are trained. As a resident you are almost never chastised for ordering a test or doing an operation, only for not doing it. It also comes from the way people are selected to go to med school--the process selects for the most compulsive people with the longest resumes. So we pick people to be doctors who study more, do more research, volunteer more and then we train them to do more. It would be surprising if we didn't have an overly expensive health care system.
With all due respect (none) can you please stop trying to present yourself as some kind of human healthcare expert. We'll let you know if a cat has a furball requiring veterinary attention.Quote:
Originally Posted by hutash
Hey, fuck you buddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saul Alinsky
My dad's side of the family, who we mostly take after, we're all about 9 feet tall. low blood pressure thin as a rail (my dad was 6-2 112 at the outbreak of WWii. had to put pennies in pocket to past the weight test). No cancer, etc. ONly thing is, we all go batshit crazy about 75. So I told my wife.
Hold on tight sweetie. It's gonna be one hell of a ride. And I'm gonna have a good time!