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Study on Australian Medical system. Doctor treatment

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8498150

Seeing the doctor results were so poor on "common illnesses" (shocking result that just over 30% of getting treated correctly by "some" doctors.. even the better doctor results are poorer then I thought they'd be. One would really think doctors would keep up with common illnesses) .

It gives some indication on how poorly up to date doctors are here and just how bad things are for illnesses more uncommon such as ME/CFS.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
When I heard this on the nightly news Tania it came as no surprise. Most docs are badly out of date. The scope of medicine is so large that its a joke to think any doc can keep up with it. Last I read an in depth analysis, some years ago, the average doc in the USA was 17 years out of date for most things. Sure, some things are right up to date - and others are much worse than 17 years out of date.
 

uni

Messages
52
Doctors in general are overworked and have a huge amount of information to retain. Some goods doctors do try to keep up to date on various illnesses - but that means taking out more time of their own lives. Love of learning and memory skills also play a big factor.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
alot of it is about money, when there not at the surgery seeing patients they dont get payed so are less likely to do more professional development etc I think the govt need to make gp's do more professional development to maintain their clinical skills. But like everything there are good ones and bad ones, but over the last few years it seems harder and harder to find the good ones.
 

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Any doctor that dismisses CFS is at least 24 years out of date, and any doctor that dismisses ME is about 40-60+ years out of date depending on how you judge the history.

But it would be difficult for general practitioners to stay up to date on ME/CFS, at best some might read national guidelines and the occasional paper if it is promoted hard enough. The rest probably just have occasional soundbites from magazines and impressions of the occasional patient they or colleagues have seen.

Staying up to date on CFS for many doctors probably means "PACE cured nearly half of patients, advocates weirdly complained about it, the dumb-asses even tried to take on the mighty Lancet with their ridiculous tripe. I can't wait to subtly gaslight my next heart-sink patient".
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
cfs/me being a complex illness i think require a specialist(or a gp specialist) but generally a GP should be able to help patients with basic scripts for controlling symptoms as well as pathology testing, not dismissing someone with cfs as depressed. I suppose the main problem is a proper diagnosis which would put us out of the depression group and a different line of treatment should occurr because of this.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
cfs/me being a complex illness i think require a specialist(or a gp specialist) but generally a GP should be able to help patients with basic scripts for controlling symptoms as well as pathology testing, .

The huge issue is that nearly all of our GPs dont even know that they should be trying to treat ME/CFS patients symptoms. Out of 25 GPs Ive been too .. sadly only ONE of them have attempted to give me meds to try to treat my ME/CFS symptoms.. rest just left me and said "CFS isnt treatable at all, sorry we cant help".. They didnt even try to treat the insomina of this illness or anything else of it. I got left in severe pain of all kinds (fortunately I dont get pain like I used to).. with nausea etc etc

(the various specialists thou have been a lot better then that, but they've only tried to treat symptoms in thier own fields.. as they see it is my GPs job to treat my other ME/CFS symptoms).