Remember back in the 1900's , when friends, family or coworkers had to go to a doctor for aches , pain or an emergency ?

They saw someone got fixed, and then after some time they were at least pretty back to normal.

In the last nine days I've heard of three people that can not be diagnosed for treatment.

One nine year old male, one 45 y.o. female and a 39 y.o. female.

All have seen their G.P. and two specialists.
None were out of the country.
All had way different symptoms.

All three are very debilitating, in bed .

What the heck is going on ?

In the 1900s (which covers a lot of ground, I'll assume you mean the first half of the century), the people you cite probably wouldn't have survived, period.

Because they stopped putting cocaine in Coca-Cola?

The medical community has figured out that there are two ways to "lose" a patient, kill them, or cure them. God forbid that they should lose an income-producing asset, so everyone is now on "maintenance." Addressing symptoms with no real chance of ever being cured.

Much of this is due to what and how "Big Pharma" research, but the entire industry is complicit.

Wow, conspiracy and collusion to avoid curing patients in the interest of greed.

Or increasing incompetency.

Which is worse? Perhaps the first since it's rooted in evil. But at least cure is available unlike in the second.

In the 1900s, I saw friends, family and coworkers going to the doctors but dying left and right because there were no treatments for their illnesses.

Now, I see folks live longer because advances in diagnostic tools and definitive therapies.

How does that sound? You see, without specifics, emotional rants tell you nothing.

quote:

Wow, conspiracy and collusion to avoid curing patients in the interest of greed.

Or increasing incompetency.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Or the patient failing to follow simple instructions. People are living longer than in the 1900s despite the American diet and limited exercise. Seems you have physicians confused with used car salesmen.

Well, I was only summarizing what appears in posts above. Doesn't necessarily reflect my opinion.

That being said, I'm not impressed w/ my current doctor or healthcare. The doctors I've liked in the past have left practice. The ones I have seen that remain are less than impressive. They are not useful beyond Rx refills.

My current doc is a Ph.D. Nurse Practitioner specializing in wellness. So if I break an arm or need stitches, she's not the one I go see. For those things it is Urgent Care or ER.

But for nutrition, treating higher than desired blood pressure, etc she is fantastic. Her goal is wellness. If lifestyle and nutrition don't fix a problem, she'll use the minimal Rx solution.

As a sole proprietor of her practice, she answers to her patients, not to some mega corporate overlord.

My previous MD was very good, but his practice was swallowed up by one of the yuuge regional hospital+insurance operations. His time with patients was severely limited after that. Everything was protocol based.

We do pay out of pocket for all the routine stuff. Our "insurance" is one of the Christian healthcare organizations, where we self-pay and then get reimbursed for any major medical events or injuries.

While the medical system is changing and can be frustrating to deal with at times, people are their own biggest enemies.
Lifestyle choice induced disease probably kills and injures as many, or more than things like poor genetics and other unavoidable diseases.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
The medical community has figured out that there are two ways to "lose" a patient, kill them, or cure them. God forbid that they should lose an income-producing asset, so everyone is now on "maintenance." Addressing symptoms with no real chance of ever being cured.

Much of this is due to what and how "Big Pharma" research, but the entire industry is complicit.

I think you are spot on to something. My late wife, who passed in 2017, was diagnosed and dying from metastatic cancer, and her specialist physician of close to twenty years started talking about getting her into another "trial". Later, I realized that physicians have a difficult time accepting that their patients will die.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Wow, conspiracy and collusion to avoid curing patients in the interest of greed.

Or increasing incompetency.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Or the patient failing to follow simple instructions. People are living longer than in the 1900s despite the American diet and limited exercise. Seems you have physicians confused with used car salesmen.

Not by much in the South.

U.S. Life Expectancy Study Shows Southerners Barely Living Any Longer Than Those Born In 1900


Link to article


I think it was last week there was an article how the richest Americans life expectancy was worse than poor Europeans.

Here's a fun fact. I have several medical issues and without modern medicine and the treatments I have received from my PCP, local ER and hospital as an inpatient, my qualify of life would be significantly worse than it is right now.

While I understand that if you cure a patient, you lose a customer, I can tell you that there are some good and bad apples in the medical community, same as any other profession.

Everyone isn't out to stick it to you, but you need to do some due diligence and find the right people same as you would for an auto mechanic, plumber, electrician, etc....

Here’s my thought. Prior to high tech testing, MRI’s, CT’s, etc, doctors used to know how to diagnose. Now they know nothing without high tech confirmation. The dawn of advanced orthopedics was World War II. My grandad was a doctor, so we had a great network of his friends, who were also WWII medical vets. They knew what they were talking about with no stinking scan to confirm it.

quote:

Originally posted by MelissaDallas: They knew what they were talking about with no stinking scan to confirm it.

I’m not so sure about that. Fifty years ago, “exploratory surgery” was not uncommon.

I read an article a couple of weeks ago about a sick woman that the doctors couldn't diagnose what was wrong with her correctly. She asked ChatGPT what she could be suffering from with her symptoms and it successfully diagnosed her condition. The doctors were resistant to accepting that diagnosis but after performing the necessary tests found it was correct and she received the treatment she needed. So some doctors are just stupider now and resistant to diagnoses of illnesses that they are either unfamiliar with or maybe don't pad the bill enough.

Woman says ChatGPT saved her life by helping detect cancer, which doctors missed

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:

quote:

Originally posted by MelissaDallas: They knew what they were talking about with no stinking scan to confirm it.

I’m not so sure about that. Fifty years ago, “exploratory surgery” was not uncommon.

I sent a friend with wrist problems to my orthopod. He told her what was wrong. She decided she needed a second opinion from a younger doc who wanted an EMG. I asked her if she’d ever had one, because they are not fun. She went ahead. The old guy was right.

quote:

Originally posted by MelissaDallas:
Here’s my thought. Prior to high tech testing, MRI’s, CT’s, etc, doctors used to know how to diagnose. Now they know nothing without high tech confirmation. The dawn of advanced orthopedics was World War II. My grandad was a doctor, so we had a great network of his friends, who were also WWII medical vets. They knew what they were talking about with no stinking scan to confirm it.

I was trained in the pre MRI era, and the focus of my education was to diagnose and treat with the fewest advanced ( expensive) studies possible. Back then we did do a lot of surges that turned out to not find what we expected those “exploratory “ surgeries.
In health care, having been in the game over 35 years now, you simply can’t win! If you try to limit doing expensive tests, a patient will complain “ that quack didn’t even order an MRI!”
Or if you suggest sensible lifestyle modifications and no RX - your knees would feel and work better if you lost 200 pounds- you are rude and insensitive
If you order an MRI appropriately for a high deductible patient, they complain about paying for that expensive test!

And insurance companies are in on it too- I see a patient that matches every diagnostic criteria to move forward with surgery, but they won’t approve without EMG confirmation

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Because they stopped putting cocaine in Coca-Cola?

And lithium in 7up.

quote:

Originally posted by MelissaDallas:
Here’s my thought. Prior to high tech testing, MRI’s, CT’s, etc, doctors used to know how to diagnose. Now they know nothing without high tech confirmation. The dawn of advanced orthopedics was World War II. My grandad was a doctor, so we had a great network of his friends, who were also WWII medical vets. They knew what they were talking about with no stinking scan to confirm it.

I understand that real old time docs had to rely on their clinical skills to make diagnoses, but you can only go so far with clinical skills alone. Can Sir William Osler or any of the old timers confirm a diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage without a head CT scan? Or, an acute heart attack with a fairly normal looking EKG, without high tech testing? Say, you have recurrent headache or chest pain due to a growing aneurysm, would any of the old timers be able to make a definitive diagnosis without a scan? In the old days, if it pops, you die. Now, you catch it in time and live. Those are just a few examples. And don’t forget that the volume of complex medical knowledge has exploded for decades. Highly doubtful that old timers can rest on their clinical skills alone.

There are good docs and bad in any era, and a good doc in any era can rely on clinical skills alone to diagnose, say, a textbook case of an acute appendicitis or a bacterial pneumonia. But to say that docs used to know how to diagnose prior to the availability of high tech testing, and now they know nothing, is simply not true.