At least one of us does 
andrewdt85: Were you setting out to prove how stupid you can be and in how many ways?
Pit all Doctors because you didn’t ask the doctor about the meds and alternatives?
Pit Qadgop the Mercotan for no apparent reason?
As far as
I don’t care is you were 19; you were a stupid 19.
IANAD: But my WAG is you have a substandard IQ and are probably lucky if you could wipe your own butt. I am amazed you can type.
Is one of the side effects, may severely affect IQ?
Jim
He probably gets a lot of practice, though, since he keeps falling down and shitting his fat pants.
I have mixed views about psychiatrists. I was very mentally ill when I was referred to one a few years ago. Medication started and I got worse and worse. I saw another and It was an extension of the same thing. I got to the point where I was very near death.
Then, my family drove me to the best hospital around. They brought in the best people, saw that my current treatments weren’t just wrong but contraindicated, and started the right treatments.
Today, I am as mentally vigorous and healthy as I have ever been. I don’t know what to think. I would have been screwed without anything or dead thanks to some of them, but I was fixed by the good ones.
Now here is someone being reasonable. Of course there are bad Doctors. I wish there weren’t.
Many are incredibly arrogant and yet still excellent, some are crappy but friendly. Some are barely competent. Plenty are excellent and good at what they do. (BTW: I used to work at a hospital)
Jim
This is a bit of a pile-on, but I feel the need to add to this.
I’ve never quite understood why someone would choose to be a doctor these days.
-Many, many years of expensive education.
-Many, many hours of internship.
-Long nights without sleep.
-Much of one’s spare time reading technical literature to stay current with the latest findings in medical technology and pharmacology, information that seems to change hourly.
-Staggeringly large malpractice insurance fees.
-And the need to be absolutely correct in every decision that one makes.
I can only guess that it is because of the love of what one does, and the sincere belief that one is making a difference. And in a single moment andrewdt85, you turn even that into ashes in the mouth of every doctor or would-be doctor who read your post. Sadly, this isn’t the first time that I’ve heard this attitude expressed. I’m curious if you would still express these feelings in an emergency room at 3 am. I’ve been there, and was damn glad that that there are those who ignore these attitudes and add something positive to our lives.
Fuck you guys, I’m with the OP. Doctors and Pyschiatrists aren’t saints and they’re not heroes, they’re just priviledged opportunists like anyone else. There is no difference between a doctor and a lawyer, a pyschiatrist and an insurance salesman.
Most Doctors I’ve encountered have been ego-fueled and have kept the bottom line in mind the entire time, hastily pushing whatever medication they were under pressure from the pill company salesperson - who was leaving just as I was entering the office - onto me. They’ve told me to take more of the medication when I complained of unbearable side effects that they lied about or tried to downplay or conceal in the first place.
They’re crooks, stooges for the pharmaceutical companies, practicing sick-care, not healthcare. The entire infrastructure should be torn down, the doctors imprisoned, and a new system brought up to rpelace it.
I believe Qadgop already works in a prison, so he might not notice the difference.
Sometimes MDs do not adequately brief patients on well-known side effects, which is a legitimate beef. Mostly they do. Some drugs (Paxil among them) are notorious for being associated with weight gain in many patients. They need to know this ahead of time.
Lots of docs (including me) did not take the Hippocratic oath, which is not administered as a matter of course at all med schools upon graduation. Nor do I play golf. I like to think I am immoral for different reasons though. 
And it’s absolutely right that shrinks wouldn’t practice without getting paid. Who in their right minds would sit there and listen to that crap for free? (Psychiatrists in general are not all that well-paid).
The OP should have spent more time lambasting surgeons. They all need to have their Lexuses confiscated and be put in the stocks. :mad:
This doesn’t do much in putting confidence in the profession (at least in the US), pay enough money and you get good treatment!
I must say that having had a cataract done (on NZ public health system, not private) I have been a little worried at the lack of the eye specialists concern for my health.
I’ve had to ask lots of questions and still they have fobbed me off somewhat. I’m now left wondering if they do this with the elderly (seeing as how most cataract patients on national health system are elderly).
You know you’re a jackass when VCO3 agrees with you…
It’s nice to see someone finally putting forth some practical solutions to improving health care in this country.
I keep trying to tell them that, but the facist pharmacists still won’t let me write my own prescriptions. My headache is bad, damn you! I have a doctorate of sorts! Gimme percodan!
It’s obviously for all the piles of money I will be able to sleep on at night. :rolleyes:
If it’s such an easy and well paid job andrewt, why don’t you become a doctor?
Good for them!
Maybe they just didn’t want their carpet shat on again.
Why the hell didn’t you bother the ask the doctor about the medicine at the time you saw him and he mentioned he was going to give you one? Dummy! If the doctor doesn’t volunteer (and not all of them do) then YOU should ask! Grow a spine, and stand up for yourself. Learn to stop being a “sheeple” and ask “What is this medicine treating?” “What is it?” “What does it do?” “What are the risks/side effects of it?” “What will happen if I don’t take it?” “Are there alternatives?” (If you don’t like the risks of the one he’s proposing.) and finally “Will my insurance pay for this?” If the doctor cops an attitude with you for daring to ask, then get a different doctor.
It’s your job to ask and find out about the medicine so you can be pro-active and take it properly, if the doctor doesn’t volunteer to tell you. (Some won’t because the majority of their patients are anti-medicine and they’ve found that telling them about it will lessen the chance they will take it IME.) Sometimes this means avoiding certain foods, or not taking vitamins at the same time as the medicine. I ask my doctor about the medicine if they are prescribing one to me, and I also ask the pharmacist for a patient information sheet, sometimes I’ll ask the pharmacist questions if it’s something like an anti-biotic I haven’t taken before. (I’m prone to respiritory/ear infections.)
Dammit, I’ve got almost a year on Qadgop! I’m a 99’er, for Og’s sake–a June 99’er, at that! OK, so he has almost 6,000 posts on me, and he has been here as a doctor longer than I have, but still, my influence is waning.
I’ve just now returned to this thread. We (doctors) may not be heroes, but we do, hopefully, bring something good to the world through which we pass. The better part of valor would be to walk away from this Pit thread shaking my head, letting the ridiculous go. I could have, like Qadgop. But, after seeing the puke that VCO3 decided to spew in support of andrewdt85 and after twenty years of slogging away to be the best physician I can be, I simply cannot walk away.
I’ll be damned. It is now apparent that on the SDMB there are two grade-A, piss drinking, pathetic, computer-lurking, emotionally and intellectually stunted losers who have decided it is a good idea to post on this forum with pure, unadulterated chipmunk shit. These two will never amount to more than isolated, socially inept, stuttering wackjobs, jacking off in the isolation of their dark, sparsely furnished studio apartments, sucking off the tit of society that pays for their disability. You two are bile-swilling, impotent, stunted creatures who give a horrible face to the human race; damaged losers who have absolute gall breathing the air the rest of the world enjoys. Take a look in the mirror. Do you like what you see? I didn’t think so. Do us all a favor, TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDS…when you don’t, the rest of society suffers. Your dark, twisted, misinformed view of the world should engender sympathy from me, but you know what? I have no sympathy for you at all. You bitch about doctors, lawyers, anyone who might be called upon to help your sorry ass, and yet if one of those people should decline to help you, you are the first motherfuckers to cry foul. Get off my world.
I realise it’s a little late for this, but what the fuck does this even mean?
Aequanimitas, OslerKnew. Never take personally those things said by ill people.
Or, as one of the laws of the House of God says; The patient is the one with the disease.