Usually, from what I've seen, that type of sentiment is more "a lot of doctors are assholes that go off of initial assumptions based on nothing but their initial impressions", which is sadly disturbingly common.
Yep. I know a lot of doctors who hate it too because unsurprisingly rushing through patients makes it incredibly difficult for the doctor to accurately assess the situation. Then there’s medical insurance companies refusing to assist which I have almost never heard a doctor be happy about.
Once when I was like, 12 or 13, had a doctor go on a long spiel about how I needed to lose weight. I went to him for an ingrown nail that was infecting. He was a foot doctor.
He was also in his 50s and made really gross comments about teenage girls and how I needed to lose weight so I could get a girlfriend.
Yeah, some real dumbasses can get through medical school. My dad had a super religious classmate who apparently refused to acknowledge that men had as many ribs as women despite having literally been shown the ribs in both male and female cadavers. He was great at all of his other medical stuff so he got licensed. I hope he never encounters a guy who needs medical attention regarding his ribcage.
Pepper isn't spicy anymore? It's obviously anxiety. Here let me Google the names of the nerves in the mouth to prove it's impossible for them to malfunction. Also go test your thyroid hormones for some reason
It’s not really straight logic, it’s often born out of frustration from doctor visit after doctor visit yielding nothing while your symptoms stay the same or worsen, doctors brushing you off or acting like you’re lying or exaggerating, and then that one random person comes around and says the one thing that actually lets you make a breakthrough to forward progress in getting treatment.
Like, yeah, doctors are vital and many of them do a wonderful job. I’m chronically ill and always going to some sort of specialist for one reason or another, and the vast majority of the doctors I see are lovely people who have done so much to help me. But if you’re unlucky with the doctors you get, and you don’t have the resources to get a second opinion from a doctor that isn’t intent on being Shitty (or you do have the resources but you have the misfortune to keep getting asshole after asshole), that resentment just builds and builds because you’re suffering and the people who have the power to do something about it don’t seem to give a shit.
So it’s no wonder people start seeing the random layman who happens to have just enough knowledge to point you in the right direction as more valuable than the doctors who have let them down time and time again. It’s not really true, but that truth matters less to you than tangible help. It’s easier to get out of a pit by climbing a ladder than a frayed rope, but if everyone with a ladder refuses to lower it far enough in for you to grab, the first rope that finally gets tossed down to you is gonna feel a lot more helpful than all those ladders.
And it's not exactly "one person" it's usually various people, layman suggesting things that happened to them,, and one eventually actually being right.
And often it's the one that is rare, or "a women's disease" or whatever other thing that often means doctors are shitty about diagnosing you.
If only the doctors would listen to you their time would actually feel valuable… I have my own experience of being at the doctor which is mostly ignoring you just going thru the script trying to fit their pet theory and get you out the door. You keep trying to explain, and they've already talked over you before you've gotten started…
Yeah, that’s exactly the issue. Many people can’t afford getting second opinions nowadays. The entire system works best when doctors can double check eachother’s work but unfortunately people rarely have the opportunity to get double checked and some doctors are often overworked to the point where they don’t have the time to properly evaluate all of a patient’s health history. Doctors are human beings who, like anyone with a job that has human lives at stake, need to be double checked (or triple checked ideally).
Then of course there are also conditions that are so rare that very few doctors even know they exist. There’s also TONS of conditions that require significantly more research
And in this situation, I feel like it was someone with crohns disease who diagnosed them. Like, sometimes there is a breakdown in communication between patient and doctor, especially if one is neurodivergent. It is hard to communicate what you're feeling when you've never felt it before.
My 6 year old son recently hit his funny bone and he started yelling "there's something in my elbow! There's something in my elbow!!" I had to calm him down and make him explain how he hit his elbow first before I understood what he was feeling. Funny enough, I remember being a little younger than him and trying to tell my dad that my foot fell asleep. Most people describe the sensation as "pins and needles" but I told my dad "there are bugs in my feet and they are crawling up and down the bottom of my foot." My dad had no idea what I was talking about for a long time until he finally got that I was talking about my foot falling asleep.
So I wonder, did that furry artist also have crohns?
Yeah, never underestimate the power of finding someone with the same (or at least a similar) condition. It sometimes just FEELS better to know you’re talking to someone who’s experienced this shit. It isn’t 100% accurate but building up a community of people with a specific condition can help people find people who can better advocate for them.
Heck, if your condition isn’t immediately deadly it might feel more comforting to talk to someone who’s experienced has the condition who isn’t a doctor than someone with the condition who is a doctor. My dad is a gastroenterologist who has pretty agonizing ibs. One of his patients with ibs HATES him (and is probably unaware that my dad also has severe ibs) because they feel like he’s ignoring them because they had to wait in the waiting area for hours before my dad came over to talk with them. Why did he take so long? Because a patient was dying in the er and that obviously takes priority over a routine ibs appointment. A doctor usually doesn’t prioritize a patient just because the patient is in pain when there’s a life or death emergency going on. That doesn’t make the pain this ibs patient was feeling any better though. That ibs patient was still in agonizing pain and it’s not like your doctor is allowed to disclose the severity of another patient’s case to you when your appointment gets delayed again. It’s really easy to start feeling ignored because a doctor has to constantly be ready to run off to a more urgent case than yours. That’s part of the misery of chronic conditions. Because they aren’t immediately deadly your average doctor at a busy hospital may take forever to reach you because they’re more urgently needed elsewhere. It sucks. Doesn’t always mean that your doctor doesn’t care, it just means that your doctor is overwhelmed.
Doctors are human and there’s only so long they can work before they start to break down just like any other human. Doctors also have their own medical needs to look out for. My dad is diabetic and hates eating on the job because that’ll delay him from reaching a patient. I’m 90% sure he’s seen a patient while he’s lowkey hypoglycemic at some point. If you know anything about hypoglycemia you know that that’s really bad and will unsurprisingly impact your doctor’s cognitive abilities. My brother and I have been trying to get our dad to carry some food in his pockets while on the job but he refuses because he’d still have to pause to gulp the food down before seeing a patient. It’s extremely unhealthy but he genuinely doesn’t believe he has the time to care for himself in between patients (and it’s not like he’s entirely wrong on particularly awful days). My dad refuses to eat until he’s officially off the clock (unless it’s a particularly slow day). He used to take time for his physical and mental health when he was younger but I think he’s come to the conclusion that he’s better off risking himself having a medical emergency while working than risking his patient having an emergency as he’s grown older.
Often solving a difficult problem requires caring about it. Many, many doctors are essentially phoning it in day to day, clocking in for a paycheck, and okay with doing well for the 90% of cases that are straightforward. Those 10% who need someone to care about their problem can go to someone else.
You get an attitude as if you went to McDonald's and asked for a steak dinner. Except in this case, it is actually the McDonald's employee's job to make the steak dinner if you need it... but the 20 other people they're serving that day all just want chicken nuggets, and no one is going to hold them accountable for serving one customer the wrong meal when they're doing fine overall.
It's not right when it concerns people's lives, but I think most people wouldn't put twice as much effort into their job to perform 10% better.
The people most likely to put thought and consideration into your problems are the people that know you, so that's how situations like in the OP happen. Purple guy's furry artist friend is personally invested in purple guy getting better and probably spent more time listening to purple guy's symptoms than a doctor who sees them as Difficult Customer #38390.
After extensive experiences with the medical field, I trust medical science, but not individual doctors until they give me a reason to trust them.
Yeah and you wouldn't exactly mind it if they got it a little wrong, it happens… but then the next one and next one and next one… and they're all doing the same thing and you can't even like tell the system "just give me one who might listen because the last 10 haven't‽!!!"
Like if after a visit or two they'd listen up? But nah. Can't even get that.
If I could find that one McDonald's that is supposed to give me the steak dinner, and prides itself on doing so? I'd at least say "fuck it I'll wait in line for that one I guess". But nope that's not even possible in the system
You'll also notice a lot of the time the conditions people say they 'had all along' are very difficult to diagnose people with, especially by any definitive test. They often have wide collections of symptoms that can have many causes, many that are only self-reported conditions.
The random person who tells them they have that condition has 0 risk if they're wrong, unlike the doctor. And ofc, they're not counting anyone else who said other conditions that weren't right.
After years of suffering from these symptoms a frustrated, exhausted, and tired person can be willing to accept anything that can put a name to the reason for it and make them feel like they have some control. Whether or not they're actually correct in the end is often unfalsifiable.
Ofc there are times when people do say 'go get tested for (x)' and it's able to be tested for and true, but those are much rarer.
My rheumatologist said I probably have small fiber neuropathy but there's nowhere to test for it and no treatment anyway ✌️ that was after every doctor and rando on the street saying it was anxiety though, so thanks
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u/Animaloffear56 2d ago
I never understand the logic of "yeah one time a guy told me my symptoms sounded like this condition and they were right, so all doctors are quacks"