Good start

That’s amazing. I didn’t even know doctors like you still existed. Your patients were very lucky.

I was in private practice for 42 years and made housecalls up until I retired from said practice less than 2 years ago. I still do a couple for my part-time retirement job.

The pressure is not only from the group that one might be part of but the hospital you are on staff. You must try treatments that are on the hospital flow chart for each diagnosis and use preferred medications or preferred prosthetics (objects used to treat inside the human body) when doing surgery. Failure to adhere makes life very difficult for said person.

I won’t even bother discussing pressures from the medical insurance companies or your malpractice insurance companies.

When I was a kid, doctors still made house calls if you were sick, there was a much lower profit incentive driving the decision making, and they were actually trying to fix the problems as opposed to relieving the symptoms.

These days I feel that a lot of the expensive tests are more about covering their asses for insurance purposes or padding the profits of other areas of their large health group than actually necessary.

Even worse, I no longer trust the drug companies or my own doctors when they prescribe something. It’s all about symptom relief. I want problem solving. I take one pill and it causes problems that leads to another pill, which causes problems that leads to another pill. Screw that.

I am sure there are still loads of great doctors out there, but even the really good ones are often pressured from above about how they can treat patients. The way we practice medicine in this country is backwards. It should primarily be about prevention and good long term good decision making and not fixing things that are broken because of your lifestyle.

end of rant, but at least I haven’t had any back issues in 6-7 years

lumbar support and a coccyx pad go a long way, old men

i only feel old, because i am old…

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For anyone who thinks the typical doctor is out there focused on unlocking the mysteries of a patient’s case, a la House, please for your own sakes immediately disabuse yourselves of this notion.