fired my doctor

[BearZDefect]

Originally Posted By: BrianWC
From personal experience, on most days my wife sees 30 or so patients a day. That averages out to less than 4 an hour. In the summer, less... On an absolutely slammed winter day, it can get up to 50 or so a day max. That's just under 10 mins a patient. This is at the biggest clinic in town so most others are seeing a tad less.
Great example data, thanks!

We have 10 to 15 minutes per patient. Surely some time is spent on required paperwork (on computer) and walking around the rooms, and reorienting oneself to the new patient. After all, the physician is no machine. So, my 3-minute example might be an exaggeration, 5 minutes is more like it.

 

[BrianWC]

Lol, that's what a fleet of nurses is for! As for notes, those are joted quickly in the room then expended on when it's slow or at the end of the day, IIRC. But don't quote me on that. FWIW, bedside manner is the key. Wife learned that first day of med school. You can be a horrible doctor but if you tell good jokes you will get sued much less....

 

[Gary Allan]

Originally Posted By: BrianWC

I know doctors are supposed to be an altruistic bunch, but at the same time, they spend a lot of their life in school and in low-paying residencies....So I do understand profit motive to a degree.

Charity isn't buying my kids school supplies...or, more importantly, adding quarts to my oil stash.

Oh ..I don't subscribe to any notion of "noble origins" in medicine. It's that notion that allows so much to be spent in the name of "humankind". No one is in medicine to break even. They never were, but we're seeing a severe drift to the dark comedy depiction of "The Heart Center" in RoboCop. Where the skill surgeon is offering a competitive line of artificial hearts ..and even the Jarvic Sport® model for the more active patient.

"..and remember....we care..."

It's "we care ..at a price".

All the costs get paid by producers (that is, even free or low cost efficient clinics costs are borne by the producing) ..just like anything else ...and if you see a major advancing line of costs in one sector, like medicine, it's a mandated shrinkage of economic resources somewhere else in the society. That's why the view has to be clarified to filter out any notions of humanistic impressions. My "group" just created their own sleep study center. They obviously were prescribing too many sleep studies to other groups. I hadn't had a sleep study performed in so many years ..and had no complaints with my current cpap therapy for sleep apnea. The physician was obviously advised to look upon patient's history to see who qualified for a sleep test to "feed the machinery". I took the test ..the sleep specialist doctor's nurse called and said that the test showed that I needed a setting of 11 (some cm/?) of positive pressure ...and I said "absolutely not. I need higher pressure than I currently have. They then sent a recording unit home with me that automatically escalated the pressure until no "events" occurred ...which was 17 (I'd asked for 18 when my current setting was 14). Meanwhile, they could have just sent me home with the recording device and accomplished this all for about $3000 less. I could have avoided all the sensor attachments ..the uncomfortable bed (they got feedback on it) and the fact that in spite of my personal sleep habits keeping me awake to 2 a.m. ..and tossing and turning due to the bed ...and only sleeping for one REM cycle ..they still woke me up for the "bum's rush" at 5:30a.m (for what reason they expect to put variable humans into a fixed template - I can't figure - more feedback was given).

 

[Gary Allan]

http://www.journeytowellness.com/prescri...verage-gap.html


It looks like my timing is just a little too advanced before TDC...

 

[VeeDubb]

[steps on my pulpit and clears my throat]

One of the problems with the modern medical complex is that it has co-evolved with a dumbed down population that demands quick and easy fixes for health issues. What better way to heal with as little effort as possible than popping a miracle pill? And the medical industry and pharmaceutal companies are complying. In fact, they've created a juggernaut of a marketing machine to exploit the need for lazy healing.

Most people don't want to do the work that it would take to have real health - like eating healthy, exercising, working on one's own mental outlook, etc. And this mentality is spreading even to raising kids. Rather than spending real time and effort with kids, parents dope them up to eliminate behavioral problems.....yes sir, getting to root causes would require too much parenting effort and we all know just how darn busy we are. But hey, we needed to have three kids and a dog because, well, ....just because. And so, the medical-pharmaceutical marketing machine continues to grind away.....

I don't know how we break the cycle and I don't trust most doctors to give me any advice that will promote my long term health (though I have full faith in their ability to provide short-term symptomatic relief).

This wednesday, I'm going to go see my cardiologist for my routine check up. I'm sure he is going to tell me again that I need to take a dose of beta blockers even though last time I told him that I had low blood pressure and beta blockers would most likely cause me to faint and then they'd have to send me to the hospital for a barrage of tests only to find that I fainted because of beta-blockers. But, heck, it should be a fun conversation.

[gets off pulpit]

 

[XS650]

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb


This wednesday, I'm going to go see my cardiologist for my routine check up. I'm sure he is going to tell me again that I need to take a dose of beta blockers even though last time I told him that I had low blood pressure and beta blockers would most likely cause me to faint and then they'd have to send me to the hospital for a barrage of tests only to find that I fainted because of beta-blockers.



That would cazuse me to get a new cardiologist...stat.

 

[VeeDubb]

Problem is the other cardiologists in the hospital are gonna tell me the same thing. One thing I've realized is that these guys, at least in this system, are not going to go against their colleagues. See, the problem is they put a defibrilator in me a few years ago because they claim that I have some genetic heart condition where I can die in my sleep (there is no reliable test for this so they basically went by risk factors, but that is another story for another time.....). PRoblem is, I am still reasonably young and can still do sports so I can elevate my heart rate and trigger my defibrilator (not a pleasant experience btw). So they don't really know how to deal with me very well and beta blockers is one answer to keep my heart rate down. I told them I don't want beta blockers or any other drug.....that I'll take the risk of this defibrilator firing off. I've already experienced it before so I know what it feels like. That's how much I don't want the drugs. They didn't like that response too much. So our little tug of war continues......

 

[Gary Allan]

Just tell them that you're not going to take them.

What's to argue with?

 

[VeeDubb]

Because they keep arguing with me.......

 

[Gary Allan]

Maybe you can talk them into "chipping" your de-fib'r with a higher rev limit. This could be a lead in to the future promotion of "The Heart Center" where they offer a full line of artificial hearts for "YOUR operation" ..including the Jarvic Sport® model.

Remember, they care

 

[BearZDefect]

VeeDub, I agree with your pulpit declaration above. Rings with what Gary Allan wrote above some days earlier.

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
... genetic heart condition where I can die in my sleep ...
Sounds far better than dying for days in a hospital.

(We shall stretch your expiry experience for the benefit of the shareholders.)

 

[BrianWC]

VeeDub have you actually tried the beta blockers or are you hypothesizing? Perhaps they can jigger your dosage?

 

[oilyriser]

That defibrillator deffinitely needs an auto/manual switch. When lying horizontal it could switch to auto mode, assuming you're asleep, but if you're moving around a lot, it would be triggered by slapping your chest in a certain pattern.

And if you don't get the pattern entered in time, you'll soon be horizontal, and it'll fire off automatically.

 

[VeeDubb]

Originally Posted By: BrianWC
VeeDub have you actually tried the beta blockers or are you hypothesizing? Perhaps they can jigger your dosage?


I am hypothesizing and I used a little hyperbole to make a point

Here's the thing. I had this device in for a number of years now. Never fired off until one day, I didn't get much sleep, was tanked up on about 5 cups of coffee and ran up about 5 flights of stairs to get to a meeting on time and then the thing shot off. Very unusual circumstances. After that, they want me on beta blockers. I told them lets try something else first besides sticking a drug in my body......for instance, how bout me not drinking five cups of coffee before climbing up five flights of stairs. I'm willing to try that. Nope, let's put you on beta blockers.

When it comes to drugs, I don't want them unless I am dying of cancer or have some severe chemical imbalances that will cause me to kills someone. To me, they are the last resort, not the first resort. Once you start artificially interfering with the natural funcitoning of the body, all kinds of unintended consequences can occur. To me, doctors and researchers need to worry much less about the "treatment effect" and a lot more about the unintended, unforeseen side effect of f**king with the natural system. Every pharma druggy I know among my family and friends are never healthy....always have one problem after another. They slowly deteriorate rather than improve. To me, that is no accident.

 

[Solo2driver]

Had to go to the ER two night ago, thought I ruptured my other (the only good) eardrum...turns out it is the same zoster virus attack on my right ear now. Doctor talks to me for 2 minutes, looks one time in both ears, prescribes what they gave me before plus some eardrops in case it is just a really bad infection, sends me home. In and out in 2 hours, at 2am at a major ER.

$3,800.00 is the bill.

My prescriptions were $205.68 at the Wal-Mart pharmacy.

I need to get an otoscope camera + monitor for myself, or teach my wife how to use one. Geez!!

If it were not for the pain and risk of losing my hearing completely, I would have not gone in the first place. It would have been 4 days to get an appointment with a doctor ($$), and another 3-5 days to get another referral appointment to an otologist($$$$), with the risk of losing my hearing like last time. I figure it was cheaper to just go to the ER and get it done once.

On the plus side, the pressure is subsided immensely in my right ear with the steroid/anti-inflammatory, and while I did not fill the prescription for the narcotic pain reliever (why? if the pressure is gone so is the pain, for $70 less!).