Google is not a search engine. Google is an advertising platform. It's 2022 and people do not know this yet?
Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
191–200 of 438 posts
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#192Search google for the phrase "climate change" without quotes.
About 4,010,000,000 results (1.01 seconds)
Why don't the results go past page 5? (Only a few dozen exist)
If the dead internet theory [1] is true a new search engine may eventually emerge which focuses on indexing verifiably human-generated content with high information value. I have no idea what is going on with Google search results.
[1] https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/dead-internet-...
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#193“ 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…
At what point can I just purchase old medical machinery on eBay and run my own blood tests and stuff.
The gatekeeping these incompetent doctors do is infuriating. If I want a random blood test, why do I need to pay a doctor for to order the test from the third party lab. They add nothing to the process except frustration and expense.
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#194It's a nice story about the motivation behind GlacierMD. Which seems like something that should be marketed to health insurance companies, assuming it targets a US audience. That's who stands to benefit enough from people making better decisions about discretionary health spending to actually pay for it... marketing it here seems like spending effort on an incompletely learned lesson from v1.
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#195“ 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…
You experience is similar to mine. It goes even further than that, though. I have seen the relief in a specialists eyes when I present them with research and tell them the decision that they should make for me. I am essentially designing my own treatment and care plans. I am not a medical professional, nor have I any training, either. The United States' healthcare system is fundamentally broken. As it stands, it's pr…
I live in a system where doctor's aren't questioned, everyone just assumes they get the best care. It's terrible because people get sub-optimal care.
Patients who are proactive in their own treatment are a positive, not a negative.
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#196“ 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…
Can confirm. They paint people who google symptoms as kooks or as annoying, but you have to if you ever want to get an actual diagnosis and treatment, because doctors and hospitals are, quite often, worse than Google at figuring out WTF is wrong. Do your best not to end up in a hospital without an advocate (friend, relative) watching out for you. They'll fail to treat you at best, then discharge you with a shrug and…
I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder for 30 years. Turns out it was Neuropsychiatric Lupus. Despite all my pleading to them to look further they never did. I had to teach myself biology and genetics while I was on disability. They missed all the common signs of Lupus; my skin, bad kidneys, etc.
I am afraid all this technology is taking away all of our wisdom. Too easy to know things, very hard to understand them.
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#197This is a great post.
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's because the US is one of the few (only??) countries to allow advertisements for prescription drugs.
I'm not trying to condone terrible drug advertisements but man there has to be something to let people know that their "normal" suffering isn't normal or that there are new developments that your PCP for sure isn't gonna keep up with. I know the meme de jour is teens diagnosing themselves with ADHD because of TikTok but it's the perfect example of a whole bunch of people being like "holy shit it's not supposed to be…
The FDA has already asked doctors if they think advertising is good:
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients...
Most physicians agreed that because their patient saw a DTC ad, he or she asked thoughtful questions during the visit.
Many physicians thought that DTC ads made their patients more involved in their health care.
Seventy-eight percent of physicians believe their patients understand the possible benefits of the drug very well or somewhat, compared to 40 percent who believe their patients understand the possible risks, and 65 percent believe DTC ads confuse patients about the relative risks and benefits of prescription drugs.
Eight percent of physicians said they felt very pressured to prescribe the specific brand-name drug when asked.
DTC ads help patients have better discussions with their physicians and provide greater awareness of treatments.
The study demonstrated that when a patient asked about a specific drug, 88 percent of the time they had the condition that the drug treated. And 80 percent of physicians believed their patients understood what condition the advertised drug treats.
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#199The cynic in me was thinking "ok, I've read the article, what product is the article selling? ok, here we go".
Although to be honest, I was nodding as I was reading. It's not only about medical decision, but with most decisions where you want to buy the best X. Maybe medical decisions are less... selfish? I mean - if I want to buy a toaster, I'll look at Which, and won't splurge on the most expensive one, but will look at what other people are finding useful. With health however, you probably don't want to spare expenses, so the decision making process will be a bit different - we trust people from which we're getting health advice.
I'm not in USA, and don't think this sort of thing is confined to USA
Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> On top of that, most doctors only have a very narrow understanding of the human body and don't know when to refer you to some other doctor they will be better equipped to help you. Are we talking about doctors, not nurse practitioners? It's hard to understand how a doctor with 4 years of medical school and 3-7 years of residency would have a "very narrow understanding" of the human body. Also, my experience has bee…
Doctors are T-shaped [0] - a GP knows a little about a lot and most have an area of interest or two that they're really well-versed in. There's just too much complexity, even within a single system, to be an up-to-date expert on everything.
For instance I have an endocrinologist (at Stanford, not to name drop but to signal this person is really good even among doctors) who only deals with thyroid. I naively figured that an endocrinologist would deal with all kinds of hormone issues but no, she's thyroid and thyroid only -- she has a colleague for testosterone, another for diabetes, etc etc.
I don't know that I'd say GPs "don't know" when to refer you; GPs are gatekeepers who will try conventional solutions to conventional problems and generally unless you push won't often suggest going deeper with a specialist. It's not that they don't know to refer you, it's that they're Level 1 Tech Support for the body and often times unless you make a stink they won't connect you to Level 2.