Does it ever amaze you how poor medical knowledge actually is?

[AndrewR]

Think about it: We can't even cure the common cold. We haven't found a cure for AIDS, cancer, [fill in disease/syndrome here] despite billions and billions of dollars of research. Someone can die from a small puncture wound into a vital organ, and we can't save them.

Case in point, I tore a tendon in my foot about 9 months ago, and it's still bothering me. The doctors couldn't even figure out exactly what happened or exactly what is damaged -- it's only a guess that it's a tendon. Ultrasound therapy is doing very little, and I suspect I'm going to have the injury for life now.

Don't get me wrong -- modern medicine can do some amazing stuff, but there are gaps with simple things that baffle me. When are we going to master human medicine?

 

[aircooled]

I'm more amazed at what medicine has done.

 

[DougK62]

The human body is a constant-changing organism that we are still learning about. Frankly, it amazes me when I see what we CAN do and accomplish...

 

[edro]

Originally posted by: aircooled
I'm more amazed at what medicine has done.

Exactly.

100 years ago, a bullet woulnd would surely kill a man. Today, you can get shot 4-5 times in the chest and still live. Are you forgetting the annihilation of SMALL POX? What about cancer? They have found ways to prevent and cure many forms of it. The human body is the most complex thing on Earth, of course we can't cure all the problems.

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: edro13

Originally posted by: aircooled
I'm more amazed at what medicine has done.

Exactly.

100 years ago, a bullet woulnd would surely kill a man. Today, you can get shot 4-5 times in the chest and still live. Are you forgetting the annihilation of SMALL POX? What about cancer? They have found ways to prevent and cure many forms of it. The human body is the most complex thing on Earth, of course we can't cure all the problems.

None of that matters to Andrew...it's his tendon.

 

[aircooled]

Think about child birth even. It was not uncommon for wowen (and child) to die during childbirth 100 years ago. Every person you know that's had a c-section or breech baby would have most likely died 100 years ago.

 

[Ynog]

Originally posted by: aircooled
Think about child birth even. It was not uncommon for wowen (and child) to die during childbirth 100 years ago. Every person you know that's had a c-section or breech baby would have most likely died 100 years ago.

Not to mention the fact that it was very common to lose children at a very young age.

 

[TheGameIs21]

Originally posted by: AndrewR
Think about it: We can't even cure the common cold. We haven't found a cure for AIDS, cancer, [fill in disease/syndrome here] despite billions and billions of dollars of research. Someone can die from a small puncture wound into a vital organ, and we can't save them.

Case in point, I tore a tendon in my foot about 9 months ago, and it's still bothering me. The doctors couldn't even figure out exactly what happened or exactly what is damaged -- it's only a guess that it's a tendon. Ultrasound therapy is doing very little, and I suspect I'm going to have the injury for life now.

Don't get me wrong -- modern medicine can do some amazing stuff, but there are gaps with simple things that baffle me. When are we going to master human medicine?

I hate to be a negative person but I am honestly convinced that out of the "billions and billions" of $$ only a VERY SMALL fraction of that actually goes to research. There are MANY fat wallets from this written into plans as admin costs. I truly think that they don't want a cure for cancers, HIV, MD, heart problems.... They are making too much money to fix the problem.

I think that there are many people that actually get into medicine to make a difference, but through the lessons learned of high insurance, exceeding control from insurance co's etc... most will lose sight of what they started doing this for and they are in it for the money.

As a test to my theory lets see if the following ends up like I think it will: They recently came out with a "cocktail" of medicines that are supposed to clear your arteries without any invasive medical procedures and VERY LOW chances of side effects. It takes about 2 years for the FDA to approve meds in the US. You will never see this available. I don't think the FDA will ever get this. I bet a group of cardiologists will pay a huge sum of $$ and then destroy it. Angioplasty has become their cash cow and they have the $$ to keep it that way.

:: going back to my happy place now ::

 

[XZeroII]

Well, maybe if more countries in the world would actually do some research...

 

[virtuamike]

Conspiracy theories piss me off, people are so damn paranoid.

 

[Ornery]

I get where you're coming from. Take a look at the bills submitted to your insurance company for each visit. WTF! Where do they get off charging over $200.00 for a 15 minute visit, and the doctor only sees you for 8 of those minutes? Gee, you might expect some results after the 6th or 7th visit, eh?

I've been down this road recently. I don't go to doctors for every little sniffle. Up till last year, I hadn't seen a doctor for like 20 years. (Well, I had RTC surgury a couple years ago.) But, after having a chronic cough for 9 months, I finally saw a GP last year. After several visits, he refers me to a pulmonary specialist. After several visits there, he refers me to an ear, nose and throat guy. When I got to the office of the ENT, they asked if I had a referral from the GP. I said no, but put it on my CC, and I'll get one from him later, which is common. Would you believe the SOB wouldn't give a referral for that visit, because I hadn't seen him in 12 months? I go to the guy he refers me to, who refers me to another guy, and he won't OK the visit! :|

Yep, I now have a new GP. This new guy gave me a referral to the ENT without even seeing me once! This whole business is a fvcking crock! After all this, they only vaguely have a handle on the problem I went in for, over a year ago. They sure as hell lined their pockets with insurance money, though!

It's not that medical knowledge hasn't advanced in leaps and bounds, it's that your local GP seems so lacking in fundamental knowledge. My brother says, "That's why they call it a practice." I'm not putting a smiley here, cause it ain't fvcking funny one bit!

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: aircooled
I'm more amazed at what medicine has done.

indeed. i think ppl dont understand that the "simple" things arent simple at all.

 

[Ornery]

Yeah Ronnie, I have a cough. How long do you think it should take these geniuses to get to the bottom of it? Andrew has a sore foot. How long should that take? :disgust:

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't charge so GD much to... what? Fix it? Hell, they can't even do that many times, but they still get paid... PLENTY!

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: Ornery
I get where you're coming from. Take a look at the bills submitted to your insurance company for each visit. WTF! Where do they get off charging over $200.00 for a 15 minute visit, and the doctor only sees you for 8 of those minutes? Gee, you might expect some results after the 6th or 7th visit, eh?

I've been down this road recently. I don't go to doctors for every little sniffle. Up till last year, I hadn't seen a doctor for like 20 years. (Well, I had RTC surgury a couple years ago.) But, after having a chronic cough for 9 months, I finally saw a GP last year. After several visits, he refers me to a pulmonary specialist. After several visits there, he refers me to an ear, nose and throat guy. When I got to the office of the ENT, they asked if I had a referral from the GP. I said no, but put it on my CC, and I'll get one from him later, which is common. Would you believe the SOB wouldn't give a referral for that visit, because I hadn't seen him in 12 months? I go to the guy he refers me to, who refers me to another guy, and he won't OK the visit! :|

Yep, I now have a new GP. This new guy gave me a referral to the ENT without even seeing me once! This whole business is a fvcking crock! After all this, they only vaguely have a handle on the problem I went in for, over a year ago. They sure as hell lined their pockets with insurance money, though!

It's not that medical knowledge hasn't advanced in leaps and bounds, it's that your local GP seems so lacking in fundamental knowledge. My brother says, "That's why they call it a practice." I'm not putting a smiley here, cause it ain't fvcking funny one bit!

I'm the same way. I don't go unless I am dying, or I think I'm dying. They will just find any way to make some money off of you. A lot of it has to do with groups that the Doctors belong to and dues that they have to pay along with insurance that the doctor has to pay. Take all that away, and a visit would be like $10.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: DougK62
The human body is a constant-changing organism that we are still learning about. Frankly, it amazes me when I see what we CAN do and accomplish...

indeed

they could probably learn more by cutting people up and just poking around...but not alot of people are into that

 

[beer]

Medical knowledge about viruses and bacterias has only existed for about 20 years. People didn't even know what DNA was 40 years ago. Once they code some of the genetics of these viruses and bacteria and analyze them, they will work on cures. It takes a lot of computing power and to simply 'cure' diseases is not easy. They can use antibiotics to destoy bacteria but not actually stop the bacteria by attacking what it relies on. Most of what existed 15 years ago were one-size-fits-all type solutions, now they're working on more specific cures.

 

[rudder]

Don't forget about mappnig of the human genome.

I think where you and I have doubts about doctors is because the doctors you and I see do not have the uber state of the art equipment and research funding. I was in an accident two years ago and my back has been hurting since. I suppose if my insurance would allow I could go visit some cutting edge doctors and probably find out exactly what is causing my aches and pains. But for now I have to be content with doctors office I have been visiting and their limited equipment.

 

[tomwolfman]

Originally posted by: AndrewR
Think about it: We can't even cure the common cold. We haven't found a cure for AIDS, cancer, [fill in disease/syndrome here] despite billions and billions of dollars of research. Someone can die from a small puncture wound into a vital organ, and we can't save them.

Case in point, I tore a tendon in my foot about 9 months ago, and it's still bothering me. The doctors couldn't even figure out exactly what happened or exactly what is damaged -- it's only a guess that it's a tendon. Ultrasound therapy is doing very little, and I suspect I'm going to have the injury for life now.

Don't get me wrong -- modern medicine can do some amazing stuff, but there are gaps with simple things that baffle me. When are we going to master human medicine?

i know where you're coming from with a sports type injury,it can be hard to get a definitive answer from a medic with sports injuries in general in my experience

 

[IGBT]

Consider that we're only 100 years out from the covered wagon and horseback transportation..and have nearly doubled our lifspan in that short time..a lot of the medical prob's we have today are behavior and lifestyle related..yes behavior matters...

 

[FoBoT]

the human body/chemistry is pretty complicated

amputation is always an option (for your foot problem)

 

[Parrotheader]

I hear what Andrew's saying to some extent. In fact, my friend who's now in his residency has made similar comments at times. He once said that he sometimes felt like he was basically just a glorified mechanic for the human body - sometimes they know exactly what the problem is and can fix it, sometimes they can only make educated guesses and troubleshoot like a mechanic or computer tech. But like others have said we've also made a LOT of progress. And now that we're getting down to the genetic level on a lot of this research it's going to be interesting to see what long term effects that has on medical practices.

 

[Hammer]

i think there's been huge strides in the 20th century, i don't know how you can argue with that. but with the human body being as complex as it is, there's a loooooooooong way to go before we get there. i think right now we're starting to see some of the first steps to getting there.

 

[vi edit]

100 years ago organ transplants were simply science fiction. 100 years from now we'll be growing our own replacement organs in little jars in a lab.

We've really only been making huge strides in medicine in about the last 50 years. That's not that much time really.

You also have to consider that many more radical experimental operations are now outlawed because of the ethics of testing them on humans. Since we can't have radical experimental procedures done, we have have a much more thorough investigation with a lot more paperwork to fill out slowing down new advancements.

 

[stormbv]

They are only trying to cure the symptoms of a sickness we all suffer from.

 

[TekDemon]

medicine now is in a comparably MUCH better state then previously, at least western medicine anyway.

western medicine was pretty much stagnant from back then hippocrates did his stuff in ancient greece until about 100 years ago. Not many serious innovations prior to that unfortunately...mostly crazy stuff like homeopathy and bleeding with leeches and other nonsense.

So...at least medicine isn't about the leeches now. Too bad there were all those wasted years with leeches and poking holes in people's skulls and whatnot...

Eastern medicine of course is a different beast, since a couple hundred years ago I think I would have much preferred to have my problems taken care of with Chinese medicine as opposed to someone drilling a hole in my skull then siccing leeches on me to rebalance the humors or whatever it was. Acupuncture and herbal medicine would have been a-ok =p

But thankfully western medicine has made a LOT of improvements in the last 100 years and is now usually the preferred choice when you get sick =p