Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
I used to have this attitude of... medical professionals have trained a huge amount, and are very experienced, and it's a bit silly to think I, a rando with access to google, could make better decisions than they could. One of the key events that made me change my mind-
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
was when I happened to end up going to two doctors back-to-back, and I asked them about the same issue - can I take birth control with estrogen if I get aural migraines? They both gave me strong, clear, confident answers - one yes, one no. I was so confused. 2/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Realizing (for the first time in my life) I couldn't trust one of these doctor's opinions, I did my own research, digging deep into the... actually pretty spares literature about how dangerous it is. Evidence suggested yea it is more dangerous, but not a lot? 3/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Iirc it was roughly around the same risk of stroke as getting in a car accident, per year. I was like oh, I'd be willing to take that risk, and then I didn't know why the doctors hadn't just *told me* what the increased risk was?? Did they even know?
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
And I found out later that the literature on this is decades old, from when women were taking over 2x the amount of estrogen in their birth control than they are today, and there's evidence that stroke risk decreases proportionately with estrogen dose. Did the doctors know that??
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
No, they probably didn't. And this experience helped destroy the magical aura of authority doctors had for me; after this I realized doctors were probably regurgitating outdated or bad information and completely ignorant to the actual risk differences.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Once another doctor frowned when I described how an earlier doctor had treated me. Then he looked at the CDC website and was like "oh nvm the CDC updated its recommendation, you're fine." Did he even look at WHY it was updated? Did he AGREE with it? Ir-fucking-relevant.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
At this point I've nearly fully taken over my own health. I research in depth every question I have by reading ACTUAL STUDIES, I order prescription medications from overseas online and lie nonstop to doctors when I can't, I order my own lab tests, I monitor my own damn self.
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Ben Podgursky
@bpodgursky
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
I think it's hard for doctors to context-shift from treating the average patient (who is legit ignorant about basic anatomy) to treating a smart patient who has done good research... unfortunately, the "easy" answer is usually correct for the avg patient.
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World of XoX
@WorldofXoX
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Used to be a doctor and I agree that most are trained to be diagnostic/prescribing/surgerizing computers and technicians. Part of it has to do with the environment of med school (hella brutal and soul-crushing), another part is because capitalism + health care = the (bad) sucky
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Erik Lönnroth
@eriklonnroth
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
This is by design. People hate uncertainty and prefer a definitive answer from a doctor over an accurate one. Healthcare isn't just about curing people, it's performative (e.g. mommy blowing on your knee after you fell). Rational patients are few and far between.
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🤖🦉CyberOwl 🦉🤖
@Supreme_Owl_FTW
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Far from being scientists and deep experts, most doctors are more like tradesmen who fix human bodies instead of gutters and furnaces, including the circa 50% odds of making things worse
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PeaceMaking
@makingdpeace
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Black Box Thinking by Matthew Sayed does a very good job of explaining why "More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents.". Doctors and the medical industry have built their egos too big to fail
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Onsoc
@onsoc63
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Most doctors find it difficult to answer even very simple follow-up questions. But I wonder if the sheer amount of facts they have to memorize would condition them to think in binary.
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