I find myself in a conundrum. I don’t like going to the doctors. And often, I find myself lacking trust in doctors as well. The reason for this lack of trust, isn’t because doctors are lacking in knowledge or that medicines and treatments aren’t effective. Rather its because a health system has been created that limits their efficacy. One that limits patient time with doctors and focus’ on reacting to and resolving near term symptoms without spending the time on developing treatment plans or working towards preventative medicine. Add to the short time available for patients, the long wait times – for instance the two hours I’ve spent sitting in the hospital waiting to see a doctor today as I write this blog. There are of course legitimate reasons. But for now I’ll leave this to be tackled later.
The standard approach (around the world) typically dis-incentivizes the doctor from educating the patient to any significant degree or to providing a pathway to obtaining that education. There are of-course exceptions.
In many cases, drug recommendations remain mystical and magical in nature since this education is missing. Further some doctors are financially incentivized to recommend certain drugs to patients without full understanding of the impact of those drugs.
Because the education hasn’t been provided, and because of financial interests of drug companies a lack of trust in the patient’s use of drugs exists. This necessitates additional repeat visits for prescriptions or consultations. These then compound the time availability problem for doctors. Further, patients themselves are less likely to follow doctor recommendations as a result of educational failures and effective treatment plans.
Further, follow-ups are not scheduled to verify the continuing impacts of problems, and doctors fail to provide effective verification of follow-up actions. Often necessary actionable feedback is not provided to get the patient to recovery. Much of this feedback can be done online actually, but it isn’t.
The media is not helpful either, often telling you to consult your doctor in the case of a problem rather than finding your own pathway to a solution. The statement: “It is dangerous to diagnose and treat yourself” is perhaps a cliche, but one that becomes true when doctors don’t educate patients or provide treatment plans. The media’s encourages patients to continue to rely on doctors for aliments that have relatively simple solutions that can be implemented without a doctor if proper education is put in place. Perhaps financial incentives exist for the medical system to ensure this status quo?
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that I need to learn medicine myself in order to come to a resolution to medical problems. Of-course, I acknowledge that some doctors are doing their best here in a broken system. And well they need to make money and maintain job security as well somehow through repeat “customers”.
What is the point to this entry? Well. None really. Perhaps to find a better way forward? Mostly to say that you should look out for more medically inspired blogs as I learn about medicine and curing my ailments.