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You are missing the point, Why should a patient pay more to see a "better" doctor. And of course many of us do when we travel far from home to see a doctor with a stellar reputation. Shouldn't every patient get the best care for equal bucks?
Every doctor should be more than adequate. Every doctor should pass rigorous testing and license requirements and keep up to date in their field. And when they make mistakes they should not lie and try to cover it up. I know for a fact that doctors are loathe to rat on their colleagues. And not even rat them out...they will cover up colleagues mistakes over and over again. They are a tight group.
It used to be it was recommended to get a second opinion for surgery but now I'm thinking it should be for even taking meds. I know this would be economically impossible for most but it is scary to read stories like this. And i don't doubt it. I almost lost my life 20 years ago to extremely ignorant misdiagnosis. Remember...not every doctor is worthy of our respect or attention and half of them graduated in the bottom half of their class. That doesn't necessarily mean they are bad doctors but I would certainly rather go to the docs who paid enough attention or were smart enough to finish at the top.
Misdiagnoses are made and in my observation most don't lead to real harm. The patient either eventually gets better on his/her own or they go on their own to another doctor who finds the problem and fixes it.
What you are describing though is a difficult thing. When I was in my early forties, I developed some medical issues that were very distressing to me. I went to the doctor and didn't get better. Without getting into detail, it took several visits to several physicians to discover I had about three medical issues that needed to be addressed. Fortunately, none were terribly serious, but together they were just about making it impossible for me to get through a day. It was a very frustrating and frightening time for me. However, looking back on it, I can see what happened. Diagnosis is a function of the history that patients provide, the examination that a doctor conducts, and the tests or studies the doctor is able to do. Sometimes all the doctor gets doing this is highly ambiguous data.
My suspicion is that a doctor's class ranking doesn't make much difference. I would be more interested in his residency and the experiences he had after medical school.
My mother had surgery in her eighties that didn't go well. I despaired for weeks that she wouldn't survive. While she was recovering, different doctors found different things that helped her recovery process. It wasn't an instant thing. It was more a case of "let's try this and see what happens". Gradually, she pulled through. Perhaps, a person who was weaker would have died.
Human bodies aren't machines that can be fixed like an automobile. Even when it comes to diagnosis, medicine will continue to remain as much an art as it a science.
We were finally able to get away from employer based health insurance and found much better care at another facility. Although they tried to get our medical records we refused to authorize it as I didn't want the misinformation from the other insurance to influence my new doctor. I am so glad I stood my ground as the new doctor actually thinks and has been a great help.
Have any of you heard of sueing a doctor who did no harm only because the patient didnt listen to him? In my case, the first cardiologist I saw did no exam, no history taking, no testing, no listening, no looking at my records. Just told me to go home and exercise. He was well known in his field and one of the founding docs of his clinic. My history was such that I was at risk, which is why my family doc sent me there.
Only because I didnt listen and went to another cardiologist, was hospitalized immediately and ended up having a bypass the next morning, did I live. It was 3.5 years ago.
Never though about sueing because the guy looked like he was about to retire and I needed to focus on my own health. I see now that the doc is still in business!!! He should NOT be practicing medicine!!!
Have any of you heard of sueing a doctor who did no harm only because the patient didnt listen to him? In my case, the first cardiologist I saw did no exam, no history taking, no testing, no listening, no looking at my records. Just told me to go home and exercise. He was well known in his field and one of the founding docs of his clinic. My history was such that I was at risk, which is why my family doc sent me there.
Only because I didnt listen and went to another cardiologist, was hospitalized immediately and ended up having a bypass the next morning, did I live. It was 3.5 years ago.
Never though about sueing because the guy looked like he was about to retire and I needed to focus on my own health. I see now that the doc is still in business!!! He should NOT be practicing medicine!!!
In this situation, I would quietly make an appointment with one of the other docs in the clinic and explain what happened. Doing it in person would be best. A letter might end up on the wrong desk.
I once knew a very good doctor who said that he hoped he had the wisdom to retire before someone told him he had to do so. The cardiologist you saw has unfortunately reached the point where his colleagues are going to have to make that decision for him.
You are missing the point, Why should a patient pay more to see a "better" doctor. And of course many of us do when we travel far from home to see a doctor with a stellar reputation. Shouldn't every patient get the best care for equal bucks?
Every doctor should be more than adequate. Every doctor should pass rigorous testing and license requirements and keep up to date in their field. And when they make mistakes they should not lie and try to cover it up. I know for a fact that doctors are loathe to rat on their colleagues. And not even rat them out...they will cover up colleagues mistakes over and over again. They are a tight group.
The doctors who missed my cancer were by and large "more than adequate," several with Johns Hopkins or Harvard med degrees and residencies at major hospitals such as MGH or Emory affiliated hospitals in the South. No one made a "mistake" persay, they just didn't catch something for years that is fairly rare. A non-oncologist physician may only see Hodgkin's a few times in their career, and few oncologists will ever see a case as slow-progressing as mine was. Most Hodgkin's cases have palpable lymph nodes earlier than I did - I went 5 years before anything popped up in my underarm or on my collar bone while I had a grapefruit sized mass in my chest that I had no idea was there until a scan.
Medicine can also be very subjective. My original oncologist was a blood cancer specialist with a Harvard MD, Dana-Farber residency, and was now the chief of oncology at a well regarded regional hospital. He declared my first post-tx scan to be "dirty" and wanted to do another excisional biopsy, which would be another large scar and I would need to be put under. When I looked at the scan results myself, I pointed out that the questionable node's SUV level was far lower than what an expected relapse would be. We argued, so I went to get a second opinion. This oncologist had virtually the same credentials (except we went to the same undergrad which is the only way I was able to score an appointment with him quickly) and had in fact trained under the first oncologist. The only difference is he was working at a higher regarded hospital. He agreed with me and I'm still in remission almost 3 years later.
I don't think the first oncologist made a mistake either - he was being cautious. He was also more old school and wasn't prepared for a patient who did as much research as I did - few patients that he typically saw would ever know what the neoplastic level to look out for is on the scan.
But the point is, even the best of the best have missteps, don't know the right answer, or go chasing down the wrong road. That doesn't necessarily mean the doctor is not adequate - but doctors are human. And even with great software advances to help with diagnostic procedures, we still can't catch everything.
The problem is that people are not machines.
They all present their diseases differently, have different reactions to things, heal differently, etc.
People have this misguided notion that it is like Star Trek tricorders or an episode of House, where if you do everything right or push the right button, it will all be obvious.
Imagine these things that my gut just told me to check...there was nothing in a paper or textbook that supported investigation... just gut:
Man had insatiable need to poo : inferior MI
Man passes out, no chest pain: retrograde thoracic aortic dissection with tamponade
Boy has pain just under the middle of his chest, woman has mild pain in left abdomen, toddler has fever and diarrhea: all atypical presentations of acute appendicitis
You can read all day about what you are supposed to look for and the appropriate way to approach a differential diagnosis, but the truth is you can follow all the rules and still lose, still miss...scary but true.
All this new technology might be a time saver for doc but it scares me sometimes. I had a doctor so busy talking and typing that he NEVER made eye contact with me for the 30 minutes I was in the room. I finally said "I'm not coming back to you so I feel very comfortable telling you this. I don't trust a doctor who will not have eye contact with me." It didn't phase him but when I told the receptionist as I was checking out she said it was not the first time she had heard that complaint. Why do people like that go into a profession which desperately depends on people skills and communication?
I dropped a cardiologist for this reason. Both in the hospital and in his office he avoided eye contact as much as possible. Can't deal with this either, no way.
The problem is that people are not machines.
They all present their diseases differently, have different reactions to things, heal differently, etc.
People have this misguided notion that it is like Star Trek tricorders or an episode of House, where if you do everything right or push the right button, it will all be obvious......
I was surprised that the figure was only five percent. I have been misdiagnosed, and I was not happy about it either. But considering the enormous number of microbes, etc. out there wanting to make a meal of us, the various anomalies and peculiarities of our individual human bodies, and all the stresses of ageing, I am surprised that it is not worse.
I do resent the doctor who does not listen to my complaints or medical history (and I am a very organized, succinct patient) and rushes ahead to conclusions.
And even more have I had very serious reason to resent the doctor who had the dx correct, all the test info, and when the disease progressed in a manner totally contrary to a normal recovery, declined to do a biopsy and exaggerated the risk involved in order to discourage me, and then casually assured me that the problem would "burn itself out" within a few months. He was an over-confident jackass, and as I discovered over the years had a horrible reputation among his colleagues. Fortunately as my health and life swirled around the toilet bowl, I did realize that he had to be nuts and consulted three specialists....each of whom asked, "Where is your biopsy?", you should have had one months ago, you are gravely ill.
But I have a lot of sympathy for the doctors who examine and test this seventy-six year old body in an attempt to discover the source of a health problem.
It used to be it was recommended to get a second opinion for surgery but now I'm thinking it should be for even taking meds. I know this would be economically impossible for most but it is scary to read stories like this. And i don't doubt it. I almost lost my life 20 years ago to extremely ignorant misdiagnosis. Remember...not every doctor is worthy of our respect or attention and half of them graduated in the bottom half of their class. That doesn't necessarily mean they are bad doctors but I would certainly rather go to the docs who paid enough attention or were smart enough to finish at the top.
I am not surprised as I am one of those who was misdiagnosed and could have died from a ruptured appendix as I was sent home from the emergency room of my local hospital being told that I had gastritis.
Since then I had 2 other situations where technicians didn't read notes correctly and I could fallen into the other 2 misdiagnosed situations but now I know to question medical people more than before.
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