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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2y28zDe:
salamanderinspace:
I think if there is only one piece of advice I would ever give to the people of tumblr it is to always leave your cell phone video camera on “record” while you’re at the doctor’s office.
Because I’m looking through about 8 years worth of doctor visit videos and, boy howdy, they’re a hoot.
I mean it’s useful for keeping track of all the different, vague, and sometimes contradictory advice doctors give. But also. You catch the damnedest things.
I think the award for wildest thing a doctor’s ever said in response to finding out I’m asexual has to go to “Oh. Have you seen that movie Idiocracy?”
Like he learned that I Do Not Have The Sex and his first thought went to, “but have you considered changing your lifestyle and also having a baby because it’s possible that there may only be stupid people in the future because apperently Being Educated is a genetic trait???”
If I spent some time with the files I could probably find a dozen other things that scream “eugenics” just as loud. I mean. Doctors are people; they’re human. They absorb societal biases. They retire and they move and they get fired, or laid off, and I have to get new ones and start treatment from the very beginning. New medical history, new round of tests, new specialists. I have to make 12 phone calls to get one office to fax records to another office (and I recommend video recording those phone conversations as well, as well as the insurance ones! You can imagine how much of my harddrive this is.) Sometimes they loose records entirely. Sometimes they forget things or have bad days. Sometimes they get sick and cancel appointments, or make them at the wrong office, so I have to take a two hour bus ride only to find out that the doctor isn’t IN that office. Sometimes they hit on me. Sometimes (well, one time) they bring their pets to work and I’m allergic. Sometimes they aren’t taking new patients. Sometimes they double bill me, or they don’t take my insurance. Sometimes they change their mind about whether they take my insurance after they see me. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they’re in a hurry. Sometimes they’re new on the job and they’re nervous. Sometimes they don’t believe true things, or they misunderstand vague things. Sometimes they don’t listen. Sometimes they order horrible, painful, invasive tests, which make things worse. Sometimes they order perfectly normal tests and the technician jabs the ultrasound into your organs until you bleed internally. Sometimes the people in the waiting room have swine flu and you leave the office sicker than when you went in.
They don’t read charts before I walk in the door, so I have to say the same hard-to-say things over and over. Then we have to play the same game of “yes, I’ve had that test” versus “let’s do it again” and “yes, I’ve seen that specialist” versus “try a different one” and “yes, I’ve tried that medicine/treatment” versus “I can’t help you.” I think if everyone could record their visits and physicals and upload them to some sort of database for comparison, it’d probably become incredibly obvious that in fact, generally, in real life, doctors Do Not help people. Despite what you saw on tv!!! But that kind of platform is more likely to abused to call out and shame individual practioners than as evidence of the complete society-wide brokenness of the system.
I just wish the knee-jerk social response to “I’m sick/in pain” was more like “what do you need?” and less like bullying people to seek help from doctors. If you let on that you’re sick, people instantly take that as evidence that you’re not doing enough to fix things, that you’re stubbornly refusing perfectly good help, that you’re moody, that you’re delusional, that you’re arrogant, that you simply won’t cooperate. Then on top of being sick you have to jump through hoops to prove you don’t have some kind of attitude problem. It helps to have all the hoop-jumping on camera.
salamanderinspace:
I think if there is only one piece of advice I would ever give to the people of tumblr it is to always leave your cell phone video camera on “record” while you’re at the doctor’s office.
Because I’m looking through about 8 years worth of doctor visit videos and, boy howdy, they’re a hoot.
I mean it’s useful for keeping track of all the different, vague, and sometimes contradictory advice doctors give. But also. You catch the damnedest things.
I think the award for wildest thing a doctor’s ever said in response to finding out I’m asexual has to go to “Oh. Have you seen that movie Idiocracy?”
Like he learned that I Do Not Have The Sex and his first thought went to, “but have you considered changing your lifestyle and also having a baby because it’s possible that there may only be stupid people in the future because apperently Being Educated is a genetic trait???”
If I spent some time with the files I could probably find a dozen other things that scream “eugenics” just as loud. I mean. Doctors are people; they’re human. They absorb societal biases. They retire and they move and they get fired, or laid off, and I have to get new ones and start treatment from the very beginning. New medical history, new round of tests, new specialists. I have to make 12 phone calls to get one office to fax records to another office (and I recommend video recording those phone conversations as well, as well as the insurance ones! You can imagine how much of my harddrive this is.) Sometimes they loose records entirely. Sometimes they forget things or have bad days. Sometimes they get sick and cancel appointments, or make them at the wrong office, so I have to take a two hour bus ride only to find out that the doctor isn’t IN that office. Sometimes they hit on me. Sometimes (well, one time) they bring their pets to work and I’m allergic. Sometimes they aren’t taking new patients. Sometimes they double bill me, or they don’t take my insurance. Sometimes they change their mind about whether they take my insurance after they see me. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they’re in a hurry. Sometimes they’re new on the job and they’re nervous. Sometimes they don’t believe true things, or they misunderstand vague things. Sometimes they don’t listen. Sometimes they order horrible, painful, invasive tests, which make things worse. Sometimes they order perfectly normal tests and the technician jabs the ultrasound into your organs until you bleed internally. Sometimes the people in the waiting room have swine flu and you leave the office sicker than when you went in.
They don’t read charts before I walk in the door, so I have to say the same hard-to-say things over and over. Then we have to play the same game of “yes, I’ve had that test” versus “let’s do it again” and “yes, I’ve seen that specialist” versus “try a different one” and “yes, I’ve tried that medicine/treatment” versus “I can’t help you.” I think if everyone could record their visits and physicals and upload them to some sort of database for comparison, it’d probably become incredibly obvious that in fact, generally, in real life, doctors Do Not help people. Despite what you saw on tv!!! But that kind of platform is more likely to abused to call out and shame individual practioners than as evidence of the complete society-wide brokenness of the system.
I just wish the knee-jerk social response to “I’m sick/in pain” was more like “what do you need?” and less like bullying people to seek help from doctors. If you let on that you’re sick, people instantly take that as evidence that you’re not doing enough to fix things, that you’re stubbornly refusing perfectly good help, that you’re moody, that you’re delusional, that you’re arrogant, that you simply won’t cooperate. Then on top of being sick you have to jump through hoops to prove you don’t have some kind of attitude problem. It helps to have all the hoop-jumping on camera.
