The problem is that obesity is truly the primary cause of many medical problems. You can treat other symptoms but sometimes things won't get better. This article is garbage.
Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
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Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#12To be a bit blunt, the doctors are probably thinking "if you won't take care of your body, why should I?" If someone is so massively overweight that they need to use equipment intended for large animals or industrial scrap, they are putting themselves in an extremely precarious health situation.
Doctors take care of people who don't take care of themselves all the time, everyday. It's part of being a doctor.
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or doctors could learn to be more humane when dealing with patients? Calling for automation in this case seems to be a very software engineering centric solution to the issue.
I don't even work in software, but it just makes sense considering most of what they do is looking up factoids in a textbook. They frequently misdiagnose or let things slip by because there's just no way for humans to memorize that many books.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#14Obesity is deeply repulsive on two levels. People who get to these extreme levels of obesity are basically suicidal. Aside from the obvious revolting physical appearance, there's an underlying message of "might as well die". Their chosen method of suicide is death by uninhibited indulgence in food.
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#15Coming from a family of medical doctors, medicine stands to gain a lot in terms of quality of service by increasingly automating doctors out of the loop. These people (my family members and relatives included) typically go into the profession for money and social status instead of helping patients, to the point where it borders on being exploitative.
Comments like this are incredibly uninformed and in my experience not really true. If you can get into medical school, you could do another job that is a lot less of a slog and make more money. There are slides going around somewhere where if you account for hours worked, doctors make about the same as UPS drives on average.
The reality about breakeven with loans doesn't change their expectation of money and social status. Also the current generation of doctors received their education when costs were much lower and becoming doctor had better financial incentives.
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't even work in software, but it just makes sense considering most of what they do is looking up factoids in a textbook. They frequently misdiagnose or let things slip by because there's just no way for humans to memorize that many books.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Well that sure is substantive.
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#17To be a bit blunt, the doctors are probably thinking "if you won't take care of your body, why should I?" If someone is so massively overweight that they need to use equipment intended for large animals or industrial scrap, they are putting themselves in an extremely precarious health situation.
Doctors take care of people who don't take care of themselves all the time, everyday. It's part of being a doctor.
And when those people go to the doctor with complaints related to not taking care of themselves, the doctors tell them they need to stop drinking, smoking, or whatever. Why would obesity be any different?
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#18Life is hard when you have worked yourself into a health hole. Getting out will require treating a cluster of issues. Obesity is trivial to diagnose. So the rest get little attention until that one is dealt with. Occams razor says don't spend a moment more figuring out probable cause than is necessary.
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Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#19Coming from a family of medical doctors, medicine stands to gain a lot in terms of quality of service by increasingly automating doctors out of the loop. These people (my family members and relatives included) typically go into the profession for money and social status instead of helping patients, to the point where it borders on being exploitative.
Comments like this are incredibly uninformed and in my experience not really true. If you can get into medical school, you could do another job that is a lot less of a slog and make more money. There are slides going around somewhere where if you account for hours worked, doctors make about the same as UPS drives on average.
There's a saying that we can't block the sun with the palm of our hands. What gp says is definitely a fact. A lot of people just want a decent life for themselves. I would like to deny this because I know when I throw a brick in the mud, it can come back to my shirt as well. However, we shouldn't run away from the truth because it is unpleasant. A lot of people go to school to become doctors, lawyers, (and lately software programming) because they think this is a good way to make a good salary. If it is not about absolute value of salary, it is about opportunity cost. "What would I do if I don't go to medical school?" Military recruiters know that there is something similar going on in potential enlistees as well.
Lets not pretend that it is not going on. Lets face the facts. Many people (if not most) are not motivated primarily by their need to make the world a better place for everyone else. We are too primitive for that. I'd argue we aren't even programmed for that yet. In a world where people think it is acceptable for people to starve if they can't or won't work, it is too much to think that our doctors, lawyers, and corporate executives are a different breed or species.
Sorry I have tremendous respect for our doctors as I have for our soldiers but that doesn't mean everyone who goes in to medical school or military training went in with perfectly altruistic purposes.
Re: Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don't See Past the Fat
#20Let me save you the time: it's an article pandering to fat people without any substance and really dishonest arguments. The complaint is that doctors tell fat people to lose weight when they come in with symptoms that match the symptoms of being very overweight. If you go to the doctor with knee pain and you are drastically overweight, the most likely answer is that the knee pain is from being overweight. The doctor…
This seems like an unfair characterization of the article. Denial of care, or dangerously mismeasured care, is not acceptable simply based on BMI (a non-scientific measure invented in the early 1800s). If you look at the statistics on weight loss success rates, asking a 500lbs person to lose 200+lbs before you're willing to treat their disease with actual evidence-based medicine—looking at symptoms, pathology, etc—is tantamount to outright denial of care. If doctors, after examining the patient, have reasons for postponing surgery that can be explained medically, fine. But just saying "we have a BMI cutoff" is pretty much discrimination masquerading as medicine.