"If it's provable we can kill it."
The only time a medic gives a sh*t about you is when you pay him
Published on January 8, 2008 By EmperorofIceCream In Misc
This is a rant. It's not a rational argument, it's not a reasoned statement of opinion. It claims no substantiation and is indifferent to justification. It's a rant. You have been warned.

I hate doctors. Let me reiterate, explain and intensify. I hate the medical profession. If I had a daughter I would rather she married a N*gger Pimp than a doctor. The Pimp is honest - the medic is a hypocrite. The Pimp provides a service - the medic tells you he or she can't help you, or leaves a surgical tool buried in your guts, or 'diagnoses' you on the basis of his or her 'experience' rather than the result empirical testing - and then charges you a fortune for not providing you with the service you went to him or her for.

You wanted a cure, right? Instead you get a diagnosis, and a list of hideously expensive drugs; drugs which often exacerbate or complicate the condition you sought help for. Consult another doctor - get another diagnosis. And in each case these bloodsucking leeches profit from your misery and suffering. Doctors are worse than lawyers, because a lawyer will at least achieve a concrete reult in turn for his services. Innocent or guilty. But doctors can say they know nothing, perform 'exploratory procedures', cripple you in consequence - and still get paid.

I went with Sabrina to the ER today, because she was no longer able to tolerate the degree of pain she has suffered recently. Everyone knows what a misery the ER can be. But even by the woefully inadequate standards of American medical practice, today's excursion was something unique. By the standards of what we've experienced today's total time spent in the ER, five hours, was not particularly problematic. But everything else was.

Imagine a clean, well appointed ER. Efficient receptionists, a well-apponted waiting area complete with cable TV and a fishtank. And off to one side a woman coughing, and vomiting, and spraying mucus in every direction. She was well prepared. She'd brought a container to vomit in. This woman spewed infection in every direction for well over an hour, before the triage nurse condescended to attend her. How can a triage nurse fulfil her function if she's not in the ER? And when she did finally put in an appearance she was surly, condescending, impatient and arrogant.

Tell me something. When did you last let the mechanic who works on your car treat you as if you were a brainless lump of meat that had no business troubling his exalted existence? Yet that's exactly how you allow these glorified, overpriced, incompetent witchdoctors to treat you.

A surgeon is an overpaid cutter of human meat. Nothing more. A doctor is a businessman like any other, a paid provider of services. And a nurse is someone you pay to wipe your ass when you can't. They're not little gods. They're not angels. They're not miracle workers. Generally, they're incompetent fraudsters whose sole interest in you can be calculated in dollars.

The superannuated hippy who eventually attended my wife was stoned on something. His movements were clumsy and uncoordinated. He reacted with near hysteria when questioned about his diagnosis - which had been reached via no more than a cursory glance and a mauling that caused Sabrina to wince and cry out. He has prescribed drugs for her which, in combination with her previously prescribed meds, will cause stroke, or heart failure, or both. We know this because the information that came with the drugs says so, unambiguously. The man was intoxicated, hysterical, incompetent.

Medicine ought not to be a business. It ought to be a form of public service. And it disgusts me beyond measure that American medics are nothing but glorified whores, constantly touting for the next dollar.

First, do no harm?

First, pay. And then pay again.

American medics. Whores, hypocites, parasites, incompetents.

Comments (Page 1)
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on Jan 08, 2008

I'm offended!  I'm hurt!  I'm Incredulous!  I'm also saddened.  Not by your article, but by the truth of it.

I don't mind that medicine is a business though.  I just wish it was like every other business... Like your example of the mechanic.  It's sad that we demand competence from our mechanics, but are left making excuses for our medical "professionals".

I remember sitting in paramedic classes, being told that we can't save them all, but we will do everything we can... I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that in some cases, what I did on the ambulance was what actually killed the patient.  Not out of incompetence or malpractice, but because I gave them the treatment our protocols required.   Treatment that (oops) later turned out to be the cause of death.

on Jan 09, 2008

American emergency physicians are arrogant eejits who have egos the size of Texas and who cannot stand to be wrong.  They don't believe that you, the patient, know your body better than they do because after all they've been to medical school - and you are a mere simpleton who has only occupied the meat overcoat you call a body for the last 30 or 40 or however many years. 

They're fucking idiots, and I detest them.  I'd rather see a Masai witch doctor than an American ER physician.

 

I hope that she's feeling better.   I didn't forget your 'stuff', yanno.   It's still sitting in my pantry, waiting to be sent off - which will probably be on the 15th, military payday. 

on Jan 09, 2008

I hate the ER.  I won't go unless I am in so much pain that I can't stand, sit or lay down without crying.

I hate Drs.  Not ALL Drs are useless sacks of meat, but finding a good one is like finding a needle in a haystack.

I'm not even going to start or I'll never shut up....

on Jan 09, 2008
To: asaxygirl

Certainly I understand that there a certain individuals who practice medicine who are not fraudulent, thieving, hypocrites who batten on the sickness and misery of others in order to line their own pockets and nothing more. At least, I'm willing to take your word for it. In the near five years I've been here I haven't met one, however. The only time I personally have been accorded any respect or dignity by the medical profession here occurred when the doctor in question was certain of receiving his fee.

Medicine ought (as in the sense of a moral imperative) to be a public service. It ought not (in the sense of a moral imperative) to be the occasion for greedy incompetents to make a profit for themselves.

Surgeons, cutters of human meat, overpriced and glorified butchers that they are, are feted by such TV shows as 'Nip/Tuck' and 'Code Blue' as something more than human. They are regarded by the American public as something more than human, possessed of magical powers. Creatures of near-Angelic virtue. In actual fact they're more likely to sew a surgical tool or a swab into your guts than they are to cure you. Their arrogance is unparalleled, their self-satisfaction gross beyond the capacity of words to accurately describe. They are the only profession that can utterly fail to provide the services you have contracted with them for - and still get paid.

Paid for what? To make your misery worse, poison you with unnecessary drugs, completely fail to accurately diagnose your condition - and plunge you up to your eyeballs in debt. The problem with healthcare in America is not its organization and distribution - it's the utter incompetence and rampant greed of its practitioners. American medicine may have the finest medical technology in the world at its disposal - but its practitioners are nothing more than witch-doctors who regard their patients as cash-cows, to be milked, bilked, defrauded and cheated.

And kindly do not tell me that this state of affairs is my fault or Sabrina's fault. Independent medical advocacy is the consequence of the failure of American medicine to recognise the contradiction at it's heart, which is simply that private profit is not compatible with public service. That advocacy is not a virtue, it's the hallmark of failure and deception.

You want to change American medicine for the better? How can you, when your interest in the health of your patients will always be compromised by the fact that you, personally, will profit only so long as they remain sick. If they're healthy you can't bill them. In order to make money from their diseases they have to be sick, and the longer they remain sick the more money you will make. The interest of American medicine is in finding ever more costly, ever more remunerative ways, of maintaining illness while pretending to cure it.

American doctors are whores, and their John is disease.
on Jan 09, 2008
They're fucking idiots, and I detest them. I'd rather see a Masai witch doctor than an American ER physician.


You might have greater success if you did. And I doubt that providing him a chicken or two in return for his services would break your bank account.
on Jan 09, 2008
I hate Drs. Not ALL Drs are useless sacks of meat, but finding a good one is like finding a needle in a haystack.


Why wouldn't you hate someone who makes outrageous amounts of money from your pain? If hospitals weren't crawling with armed security guards why would you tolerate their contemptible behaviour? Why would you allow people who have consistently failed you to charge you the grossly inflated sums they charge for their failures? Why would you allow patronising self-satisfied incompetents to lord it over you?

You wouldn't.

Had I not been all too well aware of the result of doing so, I'd have put the hippy's head through the nearst wall, and came too close for comfort to doing so. These people are thieves. Thieves, bullies, incompetents and murderers for money.
on Jan 10, 2008
I *gasp, choke, cough* agree with Simon.

My wife had a baby. She wanted to have a vaginal birth after having had a previous C-Section (VBAC). No doctor would take her as a patient without scheduling a C-Section for her. So we went with a midwife instead, and tried to do a homebirth. When we transferred to the hospital, we were lectured at least 3 times about the risks of a VBAC but nobody once mentioned the risks of C-Section, which is surgery. Here's a hint, idiots - vaginal birth is how God created women to have babies. Pregancy is not a disease that needs operating on - at least not 30% of the time. Who spread this vicious lie that having a baby should only happen in a hospital with a doctor, and not with a qualified midwife? Going to the hospital is the first intervention, and all the rest lead from that.

Never mind that you will be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows anything about breastfeeding in a hospital. Hard-pressed to find anyone who knows anything much at all. Infallible? I don't think so. More like, "Know nothing but not willing to admint it." I hear stories all the time about bad advice given by doctors in order to coerce patient into C-Sections, and bad advise regarding breastfeeding, when a simple "I don't know" would have been much better.
on Jan 10, 2008
I'll agree that it's a rather rare occurrence for I and Jythier to agree on something. Rare, but not unpleasant.

There's a very simple question that can be asked in almost any situation. It was first asked By V. I. Lenin, but don't let that prevent you from asking it. The question is: who profits? Who is making money in this situation? And, in terms of the situation described by Jythier, the answer is obvious and simple. The surgeon performing the C-section is, and the companies producing artificial baby milk are. The surgeon in question would rather money went into his bank account than a midwife's. And the companies touting their fake baby milk want you to continue to buy their product rather than utilise the source of food that's provided naturally and for free.

American doctors are whores, their John is disease - even when the 'disease' in question - pregnancy - has to be artificially created as a disease in order to drum up yet more cash for these disgusting, incompetent parasites.

As I said in the original post, if I had a daughter I'd rather she married a N*gger Pimp than a doctor.
on Jan 10, 2008
To: asaxygirl

Keep in mind, medicine is not an exact science because each person is different. Two patients present with the same complaint and the extent of evaluation and course of treatment may be very different based upon their history and/or current circumstances. The same illness may also present in different ways.


This is of course a fair comment. But it's not a comment you'll ever hear being uttered by a practicing medic with bills to pay, a new Ferrari to buy, a mortgage on a house in the Hamptons to pay off, and a coke habit to maintain. They can't afford that level of humility because then no one would believe the myth that all medics in America are necessarily a party to. No doctor will tell you his diagnoses are wrong, or flawed, or that he is fallible - because the American public is hopelessly wedded to the belief that a) they, the American public, ought never to experience pain or suffering; that all pain and suffering can be and ought to be relieved; c) that doctors are semi-divine figures capable of resolving any pain or suffering and making it go away.

This is certainly a myth, and those who believe it are fools. But it's also an advertising strategy with which all medics are complicit, a strategy they deliberately and cynically take advantage of in order to ensure that a constant stream of cash-cows comes to their doors begging to be fleeced of their money. And since all medics in America take advantage of that myth and strategy, it's little short of conscience salving hypocrisy to use the truth of the situation, that doctors are fallible, to protest that not all doctors are involved in that myth and that strategy.
on Jan 11, 2008
Heard a great story last night.

A woman was going to have a homebirth with a midwife, but the baby came a little early while the midwife was out of the country. So they went to the hospital, because they didn't want an unassisted birth.

The baby was coming fast, and the nurse called the doctor two or three times to tell her the baby was coming. It was night, and the doctor just went back to sleep instead. There was nobody to deliver the baby, so the husband ended up delivering the baby himself (He was sufficiently trained to do this). If they'd known that he would have ended up delivering the baby, they would've just stayed home.

Kicker is, they got a bill for it, as if the doctor had delivered the baby, when the doctor wasn't even in the room.
on Jan 11, 2008
Jythier:
The baby was coming fast, and the nurse called the doctor two or three times to tell her the baby was coming. It was night, and the doctor just went back to sleep instead. There was nobody to deliver the baby, so the husband ended up delivering the baby himself (He was sufficiently trained to do this). If they'd known that he would have ended up delivering the baby, they would've just stayed home.


Great Story! My question to the medical field is, why do they require a doctor in the delivery room at all? It's a clean, comfortable delivery room, with nurses and techs.

A basic EMT with 3 months of training is qualified to deliver a baby in pretty much any situation the mother is found. If there are complications, it becomes and Advanced Life Support situation, where a Paramedic is qualified (with a 9 months to 2 years training) to treat the patient.

There is no reason OB/GYN nurses can't deliver a baby. Especially in the controlled environment of a hospital.
on Jan 11, 2008
With all my soapboxing against the medical field, I will say this... at least when it comes to money. I liked how it was in the ambulance services I worked for. There was a clear separation between the medical side and the business side of things.

Those of us in the medical side were there to run calls and treat patients. We had no responsibilities towards the business side at all. The business side didn't have any responsibilities to the medical side.

What that means is, what an ambulance call cost didn't matter to us. We never made medical decisions based on money. In fact, most of us didn't know the details of what the services cost. Also, if we treated the patient on scene, but didn't transport the patient, there was no charge. We didn't even have to come up with reasons to transport, just to make sure there was a bill.

I've heard there are ambulance services that tell their EMTs and Medics that they have to do certain things, just to increase the bill. I've heard of it, and I'm sure it happens, but I've never actually seen it.

That is how medicine should be. Medical professionals take care of patients, and business professionals take care of the business side. Sadly, that isn't the way it usually works.
on Jan 11, 2008
There is no reason OB/GYN nurses can't deliver a baby. Especially in the controlled environment of a hospital.


Quote:
Woman: "Isn't there anybody that can deliver the baby here?"
Nurse: "No, don't push, don't push!"
Husband: "I'll do it, go ahead and push."

Or something to that effect.
on Jan 11, 2008
I'm sorry to hear Sabrina isn't feeling well Simon.

Please give her my best.

I am on my fifth Dr in 2 years. Two of them were Endocrinologists, supposedly experts in their field. What I find is most Dr's don't care about actually practicing medicine (which implies they still have things to learn). They think everything learned in med school is all there is.....I don't think I'm picky, I just want them to know more about the subject than I do. Sadly, all the ones so far rely on outdated information....almost like they don't read the new literature and journals in their very own field.

It is frustrating.



on Jan 11, 2008
almost like they don't read the new literature and journals in their very own field.


Who has time, with the golf, the meetings, the not-seeing-patients, the seeing-patients-but-not-helping-at-all, the pills, etc.
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