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UK docs are coping it

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
Maybe not the docs but the system they work in too??

English doctors may have shortened the life of a five-year-old by sending him home from hospital 11 times and prescribing him with laxatives for constipation when he actually had an aggressive type of cancer.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/2013/03/12/17/15/boy-with-cancer-sent-home-from-hospital-11-times

Maybe this kid needs sir wessely to prescribe him an exercise program for his false illness beliefs, cancer is psychiatric isnt it, sure it will be in the next DSM manual.
 

vamah

Senior Member
Messages
593
Location
Washington , DC area
Maybe this kid needs sir wessely to prescribe him an exercise program for his false illness beliefs, cancer is psychiatric isnt it, sure it will be in the next DSM manual.[/quote]

I'm fairly sure that being depressed or anxious about having cancer is already a disorder in the DSM. This sort of thing makes me sick. (sicker? ;))
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Yes it can be scary here heaps - I recall my brother (Prof Neurology overseas) once saying "you know we don't everything" and mentioning it to my GP in desperation - the result was an immediate and defensive "well we do know". Attitude problem ? And of course my Doc as usual believed me fit and well - three even in A & E saying "all in your mind" sent in a psycho.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
My first attack of severe hyponatraemia was a 'panic attack' despite no history of panic attacks.

My second attack of severe hyponatraemia DID get me to hospital as an emergency case. I told the A&E doctor that I suspected hyponatraemia, doctor disagreed, I was sent home and had another attack (Parkinson's-like tremor among other things) on the way home and had to be readmitted, feeling considerably worse than before due to about 3 hours' travel on bumpy, winding roads. My blood sodium was 115 mmol/litre, bordering on a level producing convulsions, coma and death. But even then it was a waste of time, as the docs just persisted with absurd diagnoses of causes, effectively blaming me for the hyponatraemia.

I read of a recent case of a child dying in a UK hospital from hyponatraemia.

But I don't think the US statistics for deaths and adverse effects of health 'care' are much better, if at all. It seems to happen across Europe too.
 

vamah

Senior Member
Messages
593
Location
Washington , DC area
But I don't think the US statistics for deaths and adverse effects of health 'care' are much better, if at all.

Believe me, they aren't. A friend of my daughter's recently had bone cancer removed that had been diagnosed as "muscle pain" for months. Luckily, they seem to have caught it in time. Medical arrogance is a killer.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
i think many of these mistakes are occurring due to cost cutting and docs are told to reduce the amount of testing, blood tests x rays, scans etc . I know here in australia gp's are being told to cut back on testing to try and reduce the health care expenditure. i think when this occurrs then mistakes are going to happen.
 

*GG*

senior member
Messages
6,389
Location
Concord, NH
i think many of these mistakes are occurring due to cost cutting and docs are told to reduce the amount of testing, blood tests x rays, scans etc . I know here in australia gp's are being told to cut back on testing to try and reduce the health care expenditure. i think when this occurrs then mistakes are going to happen.

Perhaps this happens in some systems in the US, but I doubt it's system wide yet, give Obamacare aka Affordable Care Act (LOL, already 3x more expensive than forecast, just keep printing the greenbacks!) time, and I am sure it will happen. We are in debt beyond our heads, but the American people seem to think it was good to give him another 4 years! I can take suffering, and I guess we have a lot of sadistic people who want to suffer some more, I feel bad for the people who are in a really bad place, when the bottom falls out!! I guess some of us will get what we deserve for not being more discerning.

GG
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Believe me, they aren't. A friend of my daughter's recently had bone cancer removed that had been diagnosed as "muscle pain" for months. Luckily, they seem to have caught it in time. Medical arrogance is a killer.

Yes, my own experience strongly suggests that arrogance is a major factor, and possibly the main factor. I've read numerous articles in the NEJM for example about how even science professionals feel reduced to the level of a child when attending a consultation on their own health. Despite all the recent guidelines on involving patients in decision-making, a large proportion of doctors persist with the patronising "I know best" approach. Even I can't get doctors to take my own expertise on board, and I have an MSc in medical science - which is more than most of them have!

Such arrogance and tendency to psychologise physical illness killed the mother of a friend of mine, who died about a week after being told that her symptoms were all in her mind.

I've compiled a file of errors and poor practice relating to my own care since childhood, and it runs to 4.5 pages. Some are simple examples of appalling hygiene, such as a GP trying to put a piece of cotton wool back on a needle puncture wound when I had just picked it up from the surgery floor after dropping it, and a hospital doctor being about to wipe a needle puncture wound with a tissue on which I had just blown my nose! Both times I had to act quickly to stop them.

Several of my hospital stays have resulted in hospital-acquired infections. All this leads to INCREASED health costs.

Re the original message, I was prescribed a laxative when I had excessive bowel looseness, not constipation! It was a high-fibre type, despite my having told the doctor that I was a vegan with a high-fibre diet.

It made me wonder what he was on...
 

Shell

Senior Member
Messages
477
Location
England
I really believe that doctors arrogance is a killer.
A long time ago (back when I was nursing) I came to the view that no one should be allowed into a university to study either nursing or medicine until they had spent at least two years working as a care assistant or a hosptial visitor volunteer.

It's not even just a refusal to do basic tests - I've come across friends and family where the tests were done; blood tests or x-ray and the doctor didn't understand them. My neighbour was sent home from A&E after her x-ray showed nothing and was left in serious pain for ten days before a consultant phoned her and asked to her go in because there was a fracture on the same x-ray the first doc said was clear!

The other thing doctors do, which is so unethical, is tell patients test results were fine or "inconclusive" when in fact those tests have gone missing. This has happened to me twice. It also happened to a friend of mine whose husband is now dead because his first scan went walkies so they told him he was fine. He had a brain tumor. By the time he got a second scan it was way too late. They had been married a year.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
I really believe that doctors arrogance is a killer.
A long time ago (back when I was nursing) I came to the view that no one should be allowed into a university to study either nursing or medicine until they had spent at least two years working as a care assistant or a hosptial visitor volunteer.

It's not even just a refusal to do basic tests - I've come across friends and family where the tests were done; blood tests or x-ray and the doctor didn't understand them. My neighbour was sent home from A&E after her x-ray showed nothing and was left in serious pain for ten days before a consultant phoned her and asked to her go in because there was a fracture on the same x-ray the first doc said was clear!

The other thing doctors do, which is so unethical, is tell patients test results were fine or "inconclusive" when in fact those tests have gone missing. This has happened to me twice. It also happened to a friend of mine whose husband is now dead because his first scan went walkies so they told him he was fine. He had a brain tumor. By the time he got a second scan it was way too late. They had been married a year.

Yes, I have been met with puzzlement by receptionists when asking for my test results, and been asked "Don't you want the doctor to interpret them?" When I was put through to the GP on that occasion, he rattled off a string of figures, upon which I asked him what units the various results were in. His reply was that it didn't say, but he guessed that it was mmol/l. I eventually got a copy of the results, and the units were all there next to the figures!

On another occasion, after a senior GP told me that all my results were normal, I pressed him for more info on one, as I had specifically asked for it to be done, and was surprised to hear that it was normal (I think it was urine sodium). He then admitted that he didn't actually know whether it was normal or not, and proceeded to Google it, apparently settling on the first hit he saw, saying "I expect this is what you do", as he knew I did freelance research. So he was apparently unaware that there are accredited and official medical sites where such things can be looked up.

When I had been taken to hospital with severe hyponatraemia, the A&E doctor said that my recent blood sodium results had been normal, and sent me home. I knew that they had not been normal, and I had to be rushed back to hospital in a near-life-threatening state again the same day.

After the hospital stay, when I asked how they had come to the conclusion that I was overhydrated (I was in fact dehydrated) they referred to three test results which were all either unreliable indicators or had been misinterpreted.

I gave up with them.
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Give up seems to the recurring pattern in generalised medicine - there comes the time when one realises they (generalists or whatever) have neither the education nor skills.