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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33388 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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but for the majority of laypeople I'd imagine a large part of a doctor's job is comforting the person they're treating.

Is that true? I don't think I know anyone who thinks that, or anything even remotely close to it.

Every time I've interacted with medical professionals over the past several years, there has been no emotional component at all, or mildly negative. Doctors are able to diagnose, proscribe, and conduct operations, otherwise people would stay far away.

For instance: family member was pretty sure he had pneumonia. Went to a hospital, got an x-ray. Yep, that's pneumonia alright, here are two antibiotics that might help, come back if you're just as bad or worse in a week (edit: these were, as I remember, not actually given at the hospital. We had to drive to the pharmacy for them). The antibiotics worked, hooray. In addition to $500 upfront and $1,000 from insurance, there was another $1,000 surprise charge, botched and shuttled about through bill collection, which took six months to resolve. Next time family member has pneumonia, he'll probably hold out even longer before attempting to interface with the medical system.

I'm glad that for a couple of hours of wretched interactions, trying to hand write forms alone and delirious, and two week's pay, family member was able to get needed medicine. This is better than the vast majority of times and places. But if there were an automated scanner that dispensed antibiotics, that would be vastly better experience.

I also gave birth during the ending phase of Covid restrictions. I'm glad that there are medical interventions to deal with complications and manage pain. But there is not really any comforting being done that couldn't be replaced with a recorded voice stating what's on the fetal monitor and what it means.

All the people I know generally think of your average medical care professional as an opponent that you have to outsmart or out-research before you are permitted bodily autonomy and usually know less about your body than you do if you have an IQ over 120.

They'd drop them for an uncensored medical expertise AI in a second.

I would drop doctors as well but I’m trying to model the modal human. Maybe I’m failing but I think people here are far into an intelligence/tech literate bubble.

there has been no emotional component at all

The flat affect, 'no emotional component' is what I mean. They are giving a sort of impartial authority to their diagnosis to make you feel okay.

I disagree with doctors, but many of the people I know in the middle-class PMC take their word as Truth.

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