Most people can relate to frustration with their medical care. I frequently encounter the idea that “doctors and front line workers are just trying to help people, and the insurance companies are the real problem”. And I think this is largely true. But I also think that doctors have the choice to take small, meaningful actions to try to push back against a system that doesn’t work, and that isn’t helping people, instead of simply going along with that system and shrugging their shoulders in resignation when the quality of care is inevitably insufficient. I see lots of advice sometimes on here from more established career doctors to younger doctors, and it often seems to amount to, “just do what you have to to get your paperwork done and get paid, you can’t save everyone, and you’ll burn out if you try.” And I think that is not good enough. I’m not advocating for a work culture for medical professionals that fails to acknowledge their humanity and that doesn’t sufficiently protect them in the course of their difficult work. I am suggesting that solidarity with the patient against the system is a better stance than solidarity with the system against the patient. I think many people who become doctors are high achievers, and prone to frameworks of thinking that reward following rules, and that is simply not good enough when the system itself fails to produce results.
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Can you expand on what “solidarity with the patient against the system” looks like with some real world examples?
What exactly do you think that the doctors could do? I mean sure they can go ahead and order a bunch of tests and stuff but at the end of the day, your insurance company still isn’t gonna cover it
This is a really good idea that will create doctor burnout
Be honest, in whatever your job is, do you consistently “go the extra mile” when you aren’t compensated or rewarded for it? What about when you’re told off for not being efficient enough or the people you are helping are sometimes rude to you? When you are physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of a long shift and have another shift coming up soon?
I think sometimes doctors are in a tough spot between bankrupting a patient and providing the best care. I don’t think they deserve blame in this situation though because they are just cogs in a machine that they don’t have any power over.
Are you not aware how much time and energy doctors spend fighting to get insurance companies to approve care? People need to do better and stop voting for the party that supports insurance companies
US doctors are doing 80 hour weeks in residency…they will get more burnout if they take on your suggestion.
Why not former a consumer driven campaign to change health insurance?
My Grandfather died from cancer, which they misdiagnosed for over a decade in the mid 1990s to the early 2000s. If they hadn’t it’s entirely possible he’d still be alive.
With that being said a few years ago I got really sick and my personal doctor gave me a bunch of “free samples” of a drug because I couldn’t otherwise afford it.
I’ve had some doctors complete dismiss what I am telling them, only to have others listen to me when discussing problems I am having.
I think it boils down to the personality of the individuals. Some of them have terrible bedside manner and when they do I have no problem letting them know. Health care is expensive and I am a customer, I’m not going to be treated poorly.
I had one nurse act like I was the spawn of Satan for smoking pot but one of my best friends is also a RN that I regularly toke up with.
>But I also think that doctors have the choice to take small, meaningful actions to try to push back against a system that doesn’t work,
Such as?
Doctors are already too busy taking care of people’s health. And now they need to be resistance fighters too?
I think this could work everywhere, even here in the UK, I’ve had a lot of problems with GPs writing me off and not wanting to do the bare minimum, I had to beg a doctor once to run a test only for her to lie about the results and say they were normal (I looked them up later, they weren’t normal, they were right in the middle with what would be considered concerning, all of this because when I was five I wasn’t diagnosed with asthma despite having the results indicating I did, because they didn’t want to label me at such an early age) this same doctor took my mum’s weight while she was still wearing her heavy coat and shoes and without measuring her height, said her BMI was overweight and proceeded to mock my mum, without realising my mum’s disability made it hard for her to do much physically without literally having a seizure.
Everyone in my family has a bad story about a doctor, one of them did a very basic surgery to deal with my brothers infected ingrown toenail, and somehow ended up partially paralysing three of my brother’s toes. My dad’s thyroid had to be removed because they took so long to take him seriously and run any tests. A friend I know lost his dad because this same hospital missed his lung cancer three years before he got diagnosed.
It’s definitely gotten worse after the pandemic, it seems very few GPS want to do little things, like blood tests or even see you in the e.r when you can’t bloody walk. You have to be actively dying for someone to actually take you seriously and even then you have to beg. If you’ve got mental health issues, sucks for you, everything is gonna be linked to that. You’re a woman? Everything is linked to your period (I literally created a new rule for the hospital after my mum had to go behind my doctors back to get me a urine test because I very obviously had a kidney infection and he wanted to pin it on my period despite it having finished a few days ago, now every urine test has to be ordered by the doctor or they will not take them, also I did have a kidney infection) this same doctor gave me laxatives for diarrhea that stank like death almost every time I went to the toilet.
I think I would have gotten help years ago if doctors were like this and not just “oh this puts too much strain on the NHS.” Or “the waiting list is far too big.”
Here’s the thing…
Let’s say a doctor pushes against those boundaries and rules. They commit insurance fraud to make sure the patient gets the test they need. Someone finds out. They become a felon and lose their license to practice medicine. Now they can’t help anyone.
I agree with OP, and I don’t think it’s just doctors, it’s the receptionists and secretaries and tbh the whole lot of them.
Granted I am sour from an experience a few days ago. I live in the UK and have been waiting for a phone call for months, finally get to the day of my appointment, nothing. No phone call, so I chase it up the next day. Nobody knows why I wasn’t called (I wasn’t the only one), nobody can tell me when my new appointment is other than offering me one in September, the department secretaries aren’t answering my calls, the service manager isn’t getting back to anyone that is trying to contact them about this. It is NOT HARD to send a few emails out to us few who weren’t called that day, even if it’s just “hey, sorry for the mistake, we’ll be in touch shortly to organise a new appointment”.
This isn’t the first mistake I’ve had with this health issue and it’s been going on since Nov.
There’s a lot of speculation that the gov are purposely doing this to force people to get private treatment and unfortunately, it’s working for those who can afford it, and those of us who can’t are stuck in limbo or getting seriously ill from the lack of care
Oh I definitely agree, and so far the comments seem to mostly be about ordering tests and the insurance not covering them. But what about the doctors that won’t even do that?
They refuse to test people for things, claim certain illnesses are just trends, won’t test for anything until the patient loses weight, won’t test for anything until you badger them and see them a million times, think any complicated or rare diseases are ridiculous to even consider, think chronic pain sufferers are just drug seekers.
I feel like that’s the problem ppl should focus on, like yeah doctor burnout and insurance companies are to blame for a lot but some doctors just straight up aren’t good doctors and it seems like people refuse to acknowledge it unless they’ve dealt with it.
I’m a doctor. I think we should have universal healthcare and more programs that help people financially. I vocally, financially, and physically support those who want the same. I do the best I can within the system we have. As long as 51% of voters want these MFers who want to gut everything, don’t care about vaccines or affordable medicine, but want us to expend everything we have for anyone who walks in off the street, I’m not risking my livelihood on “small acts of disobedience”. You want things to change? Get the people who are keeping it from changing out of the way. And it’s not the doctors.
Their only incentive is in prescribing drugs