Doctors vs guns.

[Phokus]

Doctors see ill patients every day, multiple times a day throughout a full work day. How often do you hold a gun?

Whoever wrote this chain email is a moron.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I'm pro gun, and anti statistics. Statistics will say whatever you want them to. They're the ultimate tool of the con artist.

Two deer hunters were out hunting. All of a sudden they were charged by a rabid grizzly bear. If they didn't act quickly they would both surely be killed.
One fired a foot to the left of the bear and the other fired a foot to the right on the bear.
On average, they killed the bear.

 

[Whisper]

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: Playmaker

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Playmaker
Sadly, there are gun nuts that probably take this joke seriously.

As a side note, it's a pity that the public has lost so much respect for docs with the advent of Dr. Google. Considering the experiences of college friends that have gone on to various careers and grad schools in the years since we've graduated, med school makes even top law schools, engineering PhDs, and investment banking look like vacations.

Huh? Ask anyone with an MD and a PhD which was harder. PhD every time. Medical school is chump change compared to getting a PhD in engineering, at least according to my MD father and MD/PhD boss.

Investment banking is definitely way harder according to my classmate with a lot of investment banking friends. http://www.iddxblog.com/2008/0...ciates-med-school.html

Residency gets shitty but med school isn't that bad

I was actually on that track until my first internship and still keep in touch with classmates that went that route (4am emails anyone?). More time-consuming, perhaps, but not harder. The finance is relatively simple, and grinding in excel, proofreading and changing commas, and waiting at the printer until 3am for pitch books isn't difficult. As you move up (i.e. can't find a buy-side position), you manage teams and sell, sell, sell, but it's never all that complex.

Yeah I guess the hours are whats tough more than anything. Also just getting your foot in the door at the bulge brackets. Med school is easy in the sense that if you're not that strong academically, you can save some babies and get in through that route. Once you're in, it's just rote memorization until you graduate. I dunno, a lot of med students dont have much going on upstairs. The MSTPs though, those kids are smart

I have a friend at Hopkins going for his MD-Ph.D...definitely a smart guy, but even he admits he should probably never see actual patients.

As for which is more difficult, I'd guess it really depends on your particular skill set. In terms of work put in, Ph.D. is possibly roughly equivalent to M.D. in many respects; Ph.D. requires more "originality" in thinking, I suppose, given that the programs are generally very self-guided in terms of research projects and the like. Med school, on the other hand, definitely wins for disgustingly vast amount of material you're expected to memorize and know.

Then again, I'm only in grad school myself, and have never been to med school, so my experience with the latter is based entirely on anecdotal reports from friends and colleagues. Some say the Ph.D. is more difficult, some say the M.D. is more difficult, and most have no idea.

 

[BassBomb]

Include non accidental in there

 

[Kntx]

Lol.. what a stupid statistic.

I'd be more interested in how many people are purposefully killed by doctors vs. purposefully killed by people with guns.

 

[Genx87]

If these numbers are true I think people are confusing cancer patients on their death bed showing up in the docs office. These are accidental deaths caused by our health care industry. Meaning you are perfectly healthy, visit the doc, and as a result die from their mistake.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: vi edit
Not to divert the thread, but I don't think Med school is really the hard part about being a doctor. It's the 3-4 years of residency working 80+ hours a week after you get out school that sucks.

And you don't think professors of engineering have to work 80+ hours a week for their first 5-7 years until they get tenure? I guess there aren't as many TV dramas depicting the work of PhD's, so it must be a walk in the park for us...

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Ban Doctors!

Frontier Medicine works.

 

[NeoV]

I have a really hard time believing that many people die from errors made by doctors each year.

 

[jonks]

Wait till you see stats on how many people die from waffles.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Hrmm it would be interesting to see how many accidental deaths doctor's caused people who were in for treatment due to an accidental gun shot wound...

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: jonks
Wait till you see stats on how many people die from waffles.

Are those accidental or suicides though?

 

[Gothgar]

90% of statics are made up on the spot

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: Playmaker

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Playmaker
Sadly, there are gun nuts that probably take this joke seriously.

As a side note, it's a pity that the public has lost so much respect for docs with the advent of Dr. Google. Considering the experiences of college friends that have gone on to various careers and grad schools in the years since we've graduated, med school makes even top law schools, engineering PhDs, and investment banking look like vacations.

Huh? Ask anyone with an MD and a PhD which was harder. PhD every time. Medical school is chump change compared to getting a PhD in engineering, at least according to my MD father and MD/PhD boss.

I guess someone from an MSTP can make that judgment the best, but that's not what I've gathered from engineering PhD friends (don't know any hard science PhDs).

my gf is in an MSTP program. she has almost zero free time. in her first 2 years she has regular med school classes plus additional MSTP classes. she does get paid though. not a bad deal...

 

[imported_mateo]

There is more to that statistic than you might think IMO.

Working in a hospital is like working at a restaurant. If people saw even a fraction of what "really happens" they would be shocked.

While in healthcare we do an amazing job most of the time, there are moments that just blow my mind.

The problem is many of these mistakes kill already sick people. Families often are never told their loved one died of a mistake because it is easy to cover up. For ex: Its perfectly reasonable for someone to go into surgery and die. No red flags are raised in most cases...

I have seen scary things happen due to bad handwriting alone. It amazes me every time because these types of errors are born out of laziness and arrogance. I dont care how busy you are, you have time to write at least your orders clearly (I dont care about your notes...).

The other big problem is it can be amazingly hard to reach the right people at off hours, weekends, etc. I have said many times the most dangrous place you can be on the planet on a weekend holiday in the middle of the night is a hospital.

Mini rant over...

 

[shocksyde]

Originally posted by: Gothgar
90% of statics are made up on the spot

No, 84.23% are made up on the spot.

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: Whisper

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: Playmaker

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Playmaker
Sadly, there are gun nuts that probably take this joke seriously.

As a side note, it's a pity that the public has lost so much respect for docs with the advent of Dr. Google. Considering the experiences of college friends that have gone on to various careers and grad schools in the years since we've graduated, med school makes even top law schools, engineering PhDs, and investment banking look like vacations.

Huh? Ask anyone with an MD and a PhD which was harder. PhD every time. Medical school is chump change compared to getting a PhD in engineering, at least according to my MD father and MD/PhD boss.

Investment banking is definitely way harder according to my classmate with a lot of investment banking friends. http://www.iddxblog.com/2008/0...ciates-med-school.html

Residency gets shitty but med school isn't that bad

I was actually on that track until my first internship and still keep in touch with classmates that went that route (4am emails anyone?). More time-consuming, perhaps, but not harder. The finance is relatively simple, and grinding in excel, proofreading and changing commas, and waiting at the printer until 3am for pitch books isn't difficult. As you move up (i.e. can't find a buy-side position), you manage teams and sell, sell, sell, but it's never all that complex.

Yeah I guess the hours are whats tough more than anything. Also just getting your foot in the door at the bulge brackets. Med school is easy in the sense that if you're not that strong academically, you can save some babies and get in through that route. Once you're in, it's just rote memorization until you graduate. I dunno, a lot of med students dont have much going on upstairs. The MSTPs though, those kids are smart

I have a friend at Hopkins going for his MD-Ph.D...definitely a smart guy, but even he admits he should probably never see actual patients.

As for which is more difficult, I'd guess it really depends on your particular skill set. In terms of work put in, Ph.D. is possibly roughly equivalent to M.D. in many respects; Ph.D. requires more "originality" in thinking, I suppose, given that the programs are generally very self-guided in terms of research projects and the like. Med school, on the other hand, definitely wins for disgustingly vast amount of material you're expected to memorize and know.

Then again, I'm only in grad school myself, and have never been to med school, so my experience with the latter is based entirely on anecdotal reports from friends and colleagues. Some say the Ph.D. is more difficult, some say the M.D. is more difficult, and most have no idea.

Might depend on the specific graduate field too. A lot of the basic sciences really aren't that impressive. It's just a matter of doing the experiments and collecting the data. There's some problem solving but a lot of guidance comes from the PI, along w/ plenty of the actualy conceptualization of the project. Most PhDs dont come up with anything earth shattering or truly novel, they just add to the body of scientific knowledge using tried and true technqiues. I dunno, a lot of it seems like cooking, follow the protocol --> collect results. I think when it gets to more abstract fields like math... those motherfuckers are smart

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
Don't know if it's true or not, but given that people go to the doctor when they are SICK or INJURED, I'd say this is an unfair comparison. Besides, there's no definition given here. What's an accidental death caused by a doctor? What defines that?

Misdiagnosis or an accidental act that causes a death? Like giving the wrong medicine or cutting out the wrong body part.

I have seen this information and it is amusing to say the least. Even if you add in gun deaths from crime you have a much higher chance of being killed by your doctor than a gun.

But are they counting people that went to see the doctor because they were shot? That could skew the results. Guy walks in with a gun shot wound to the foot, doctor amputates his arm and guy bleeds out on the table? What killed him, the doctor or the gun shot that sent him to the hospital? Hmmmm.

I've heard of some freak accidents with guns, but hearing about doctors that cut off completely good body parts in error always leaves me

 

[zinfamous]

I assume 90% of those numbers are related to surgery? There is an inherent risk every patient accepts when agreeing to undergo surgery. Even the most routine procedure can lead to death. Are these all avoidable accidents, or are they including unforseen complications? Who's at fault if the patient doesn't disclose proper drug allergies and later dies due to an allergic reaction to an anesthetic? I'd call that an accident, but is it the doctor's fault?

Sure, negligence happens, but I think that's a pretty silly lump figure there.

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: savoyboy
we should revoke savoyboy's posting license

Fixed.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's accidental deaths. How much of those were on purpose? I bet the gun ratio would be much higher. A gun is made to kill people/animals so someone who owns a gun has the intention of killing a human or an animal. A doctor's intention is to help people but accidents / unpreventable misshaps happen.

 

[SagaLore]

Now give us stats on how many lives doctors have saved, versus how many lives guns have saved. That would be interesting.

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
That's accidental deaths. How much of those were on purpose? I bet the gun ratio would be much higher. A gun is made to kill people/animals so someone who owns a gun has the intention of killing a human or an animal. A doctor's intention is to help people but accidents / unpreventable misshaps happen.

Oh boy.

 

[MovingTarget]

1) Obtain gun
2) Go to local doctor's office/pharmacy
3) Demand free medical treatment and medication
4) Realize that 1-3 are in jest, but it is certainly cheaper to buy an arsenal than to get medical treatment w/o insurance.
...
No profit. (for you, anyway)

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
That's accidental deaths. How much of those were on purpose? I bet the gun ratio would be much higher. A gun is made to kill people/animals so someone who owns a gun has the intention of killing a human or an animal. A doctor's intention is to help people but accidents / unpreventable misshaps happen.

Oh boy.

What else would you buy a gun for, shooting pop cans? lol

I did mention animals as people who hunt will buy a gun to shoot animals and not people, but I doubt if someone is buying an AK47 or a RPG that they plan to go shoot a partridge or a moose. Ok, maybe, but wow, not much meat left after.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: MovingTarget
1) Obtain gun
2) Go to local doctor's office/pharmacy
3) Demand free medical treatment and medication
4) Realize that 1-3 are in jest, but it is certainly cheaper to buy an arsenal than to get medical treatment w/o insurance.
...
No profit. (for you, anyway)

Or move to Canada, get free health care.

Buy hockey sticks for defense, no need for high powered riffles and hand guns. (get the plastic blades, they hurt more in winter)