All of us in the medical world complain fairly frequently about our patients preferring the advice they receive from the internet or cousin Billy Bob or the plumber over a trained professional. I was thinking about that phenomenon today after hearing from the owner of a dog with neck pain say, "The medication you sent home with us last month worked for a while then we quit using it since she felt so much better and now she's dreadfully sick again." The dog's neck pain was back to the same level or worse than before we started medication. Now we probably have the added problem of wind-up pain, but, I digress.
I have a new theory about this that actually makes sense to me. It doesn't help my frustration but it makes sense...
What if people have simply begun to lose faith in the medical field to the point that they feel that we, as a profession, are more interested in money-grubbing than the well-being of their pets or, for the MD's out there, themselves?
3 years ago
4 comments:
You don't think Dr. Google is the best thing since sliced bread??
I think people began by losing faith in the (human) medical field. We're catching the fallout.
One more reason I can't wait to be out of clinical practice for good.
I do think it's coming from the human medical field, as the above poster stated.
In that regard, my impression is that it isn't because of the money. It's because the doctors seem to be in a hurry, and seem to not(or actually don't) listen to the patients, don't seem to think the patients know anything at all, and talk down to them.
If you don't feel heard, you don't have confidence in the response.
Makes a sympathetic seeming stranger sound good.
Physicians usually are in a hurry, because the more they interrupt and fail to listen, the more patients they can see, and the more money they make.
It most certainly is about the money. If physicians saw the number of patients they could actually handle, their salaries would be cut. They'd still make a lot more than most veterinarians, but that's not good enough for "real" doctors.
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