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Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

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Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#111

Post by lupire »

geek_at wrote: post #4

> In the pre-Szaszian era, medicine was something that happened to you. You would put your health in your doctor's hands and they would unilaterally decide your course of treatment. But in today's patient-centered world, doctors are more like consultants To be honest I've only seen this level of "patient-centered" stuff in the US. Never heard the phrase "Ask your doctor about xy" anywhere but on US TV. Sometimes pret…

Broadly, it's because the US has a culture of individual sovereignty and not everyone being a ward of the state.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#112

Post by Workaccount2 »

fullstop wrote: post #18
donatj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would personally rather be involved in the decision making process related to my very existence rather than just told what to do.

I mean, I agree with this but also feel that pharmaceutical companies should not be advertising directly to the public.

I think everyone agrees, but it is a first amendment nightmare to try and regulate.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#113

Post by jmuguy »

jonhohle wrote: post #109
jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

Are there any laws that treat medical providers as fiduciaries? That seems like a minimum bar that insurance companies would want to enforce (at least in the short term when premiums could remain high while treatment cost plummets).

Well theres the hippocratic oath, but maybe thats little comfort.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#114

Post by xyzzy21 »

This is a legal problem - allowing broadcast advertisements to the general public for pharma products is where the problem started. Before that, pharma had to advertise in targeting media directly addressing the medical profession only, e.g. JAMA, NEJM, various trade magazines, etc.

That's how this should be fixed - return to those limits. In an online environment that would mean limiting ads to doctors et al. on sites that require password and professional identification/validation. Otherwise information on drugs et al. should be presented only neutrally and scientifically to the broader public - marketing should be banned from the process.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#115

Post by ada1981 »

Years ago I worked with a start-up called MetaMed, funded personally by Theil, to provide a team of private medical researchers.

They didn’t make it, but the premise was sound / that standard of care is about 30 years behind research (at best).

The mindset I learned there helped me overcome a diagnosis of Bipolar / schizoaffective by doing primary research and rejecting the medications of Standford Psychiatry…

8 years later, with a mix of shamanism, spiral dynamics, mens work, underground mdma therapy, 5meoDMT, somatic therapy, biomythic.com and coaching and I’ve finally got some place to stand within itself, no need for medicines, and no longer dealing w suicidal depression or manic psychosis.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#116

Post by brootstrap »

brightball wrote: post #48
donatj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a new dentist for a broken filling and they tried to tell me I had 14 cavities and set me down with a finance person to set up a payment plan for how I was going to pay for them over the next 5 years. I went to a second dentist, they fixed the broken filling and said my teeth were otherwise fine. I have the paperwork to back this up. I’d been seeing another dentist for a while and he suddenly wanted to crow…

This was my experience as well. I went to the same dentist office for years with no issues. He sold the practice so we went to the new guy...every single time we went in there was a cavity that needed to be filled. Went to a new dentist and everything is fine again.

One of my good co-workers is daughter of a dentist from the UK. the practices there are much different. We have had him analyze xrays and scans, he says its fine the people here just want/need your money!

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#117

Post by cyberlurker »

elcomet wrote: post #76
acheron wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, expecting Google to give you high-quality medical advice when your actual, licensed, trained dental hygienest is not is asking a lot of a search engine. This is true. > and "reddit.com" as a suffix pretty good for anything else. LOL. Our definitions of "high quality" are apparently different.

high quality here means "genuine", ie discusions made by real humans and not corporate advertising.

Unfortunately Reddit discussions can be made to look genuine when they are really corporate advertising.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#118

Post by rr808 »

jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

I have noticed the same. My wife has some chronic problems. I figured going to a specialist would be able to give some good advice. For a few thousand in fees you'd think the hospital would be able to give you a book or at least a link to some reputable websites, instead we got a photocopied page and told to google it.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#119

Post by salsadip »

gtirloni wrote: post #93
jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

> Gatekeepers that block access to potential treatment pathways until you can convince them it’s worth a try. You assume they actually know what needs to be done. In my experience, you can see they don't have a clue and aren't willing to do research to learn. They just hand out their usual prescriptions, etc and sometimes hope an exam will give them an obvious answer. On top of that, most doctors only have a very nar…

I‘m really not trying to sound snarky, but - is this the supposedly high quality treatment that U.S. citizens get that is so much more expensive as opposed to the „socialized“ insurance we get in Europe that is cheaper for everybody and supposedly therefore not as good/cutting edge?

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#120

Post by vasco »

rightbyte wrote: post #95
vasco wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if a doctor spends a bunch of time on you, you should still do research. End of the day you're the person that cares most about your health in the whole world, why should you just leave it to a random expert with good intentions? If you spend time researching and come to them with detailed information about your symptoms, what you already ruled out and things you've tried, as well as a good understanding of your…

I care most about my car, house etc in the whole world too. The risk I guess is that being informed might make me want to overrule the experts. On a population scale the advice might be bad. Depends on how good the experts are.

So your opinion is that if research tells you that you should overrule a doctor's opinion, the right course of action is to not bring it up, not do the research in the first place, because the doctor "knows better"?

In my opinion if you disagree or have doubts about treatment you should definitely bring those up with your doctor, see what they say about your reservations, and either get convinced or find some second opinion to increase trust in the expert opinion vs your own research. One thing I've learned from living with a doctor for several years is that an informed curious person on a very specific subject knows more than a doctor that has to know about a million things and probably isn't up on medical research papers. Your duty should be to bring up that research to your doctor and bring them up to speed. Once they read those they'll understand them better than you, but before... not a given.

Discussion is always better than no discussion. Engineers get thing wrong all the time, but code reviews help. You should help your doctor to minimize mistakes rather than just accepting everything.

Not only that, medical history is often wrong. I've often corrected previous notes to a new doctor - learning only then that the previous one hadn't actually understood what I had shared. There's a million ways in which your active involvement and care improve your outcomes.

Another time I asked about several aberrations in an x-ray after a surgery, and the doctor admitted there had been a slight mistake during the surgery that chipped a bone, but that it wouldn't have negative consequences. He didn't bring it up until I asked.

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