Folks Without Book Learnin' are Entitled to Medical Opinions

Thanks to well reasoned arguments from people I respect I'm rethinking my position/s.

People oftentimes places themselves in what they assume are the capable hands of the medical profession and stop asking questions about their care. Many, many times I heard people complain about getting one blood test after another and having no feedback on what, why, or the outcomes. Then they would shrug and say, "I guess he wouldn't order them if they weren't necessary", and stick their arm out for a blood draw.

Hardly! Many times, after drawing the sample, I would go to the desk and ask the nurse to put a note in the chart requesting the physician discuss the on-going tests with the pt. More often than not the number and frequency of the tests would decline.

When my daughter was gravely ill as a baby she was given a spinal tap to check for menigitis, given broad-spectrum antibiotics just in case, and transferred to a pediatric intensive-care hospital. The chief resident told me he was ordering a repeat spinal tap to verify the negative results. I refused. He pulled the head pediatrician of the hospital into the discussion who agreed with me that the first tap was sufficient and the medication given made any recheck unnecessary.

Medical treatment recieved is not always necessary, sometimes contraindicated, and sometimes dangerous.

folks without book learning
i recently listened to an interview with stephen schneider, ph. d. , who calls himself...THE PATIENT FROM HELL...and has written a book about his experience - i suggest you look at the two links at the bottom also.
i also listenened to an interview with a heart specialist at one of the major toronto hospitals. he said that he often asks his patients to start some "google research" on their own. he will give give his patients certain guidelines on how to do the "research". he said that he could not possible be up-to-date on every new research finding and procedure, because he would spent all his time reading not have time to see any patients. once patients have presented their "research paper", he'll sit down with them to discuss their findings and develop appropriate treatment applications.

our own doctor has on occasion asked us to do some looking up and bring printouts to our next visit. these have been fairly simple things, such as checking on potassium rich foods, as an example. he thinks that keeping the patient involved is a good thing, and i agree with him.

i have read/heard that some hospitals now use a computer program to interact with patients to develop a medical profile. i understand that initial results have shown, that patients are ready to divulge their "secrets" more readily to a computer than to a physician; as an example such questions as : "how many drinks per week ?" or "how much do you smoke per day ?" are apparently more honestly answered to the computer than the physician. it also takes up less time for the phys, the patient isn't hurried and the computer likely won't overlook a question.
has anyone actual experience with such a program ?
it would be interesting to hear about it.

i find the website of the mayo clinic at www.mayoclinic.com quite helpful, but have a few more medical websites under my "favorites".
hbg

folks without book learning
her is an example of a...COMPUTER - PATIENT INTERFACE... developed by the university at aarhus/denmark - quite interesting. hbg

Every time I visit my doctor I input my current status on their "depression computer". It's a little hand-held thing that asks about 20 questions.

Yeah I read a book once (vacination roulette or something along those lines) that had many stories about cases like infants dying from vaccinations (no BS - backed up). It pointed out that for many diseases nowadays the probability of catching the disease naturally is less than catching the disease from its vaccination.
However, on the other side theres the fact that if it werent for injecting germs into people we would still have diseases like smallpox.
Theres not always conclusive prove that one way is better, but people must always have the right to refuse anything medical being done to their children (esp when it could kill them).

Any time that you take a medication, undergo surgery, or have some medical procedure, you are playing trade-off. Medicine is as much an art as a science, and it is far from perfect. Often, if one is not careful, the cure can be worse than the disease.

IMO, it is very important for people to become as knowledgable as possible about their medical conditions, and the drugs that they are taking.
It is not enough nowadays to blindly accept what a doctor tells you. You need to do some research on your own. Your life may depend on it!

I'm all for educated patients.

The people who raise my hackles are those who announce, "You can't believe what They tell you."