What Do You Think of Conventional Medicine?

Question by sunmelody: What do you think of conventional medicine?

Best answer:

Answer by Lightning
its not everything it claims to be and is oversold but there are somethings it is very good at such as critical emergency care and management of life threatening acute conditions.

If I had acute knee pain I’d see an osteopath.
If I had toothache I’d see a dentist.
If my vision was failing I’d see an Optometrist.
If my Wife was having a baby I’d see an independent midwife.
If I had a road accident and was in Critical Condition I’d want to see a doctor in the ER.

Its about seeing a person best qualified to deal with your complaint.

Edit:
Fact Guy, you quite clearly don’t practice any form of medicine if you think that medics only treat on evidence base and not hunches.
We all learn pattern recognition and when a patient presents that doesn’t quite fit the pattern your experience teaches you not to treat them like a text book (which no one is) but explore what else could be going on other than the obvious.
Is that a hunch? I think it is…
I do agree that being owners of our own businesses can promote a tendency to over treat but this does apply to the conventional system as well.
The bottom line is if we don’t get people better they don’t come back.
I don’t know how gullible you think people are but trust me if we aren’t effective we go bankrupt very quickly.
ACC physiotherapy has been described as the biggest scam to hit New Zealand.
A patient is referred by their doctor to a Physio and then given a treatment program of 12 – 20 treatments, some times coming in every day.
The patient may get no better but as the government is paying the bill (not the patient) they don’t complain. The physio has no incentive to get the patient better because they have a line of them waiting to see them.
ACC patients come and see us and get subsidised (not free) treatment. I can tell you no patient will continue to see me 12 times if they are no better as they are paying $ 35 a shot.
If you want evidence look at that. When the end user is paying people vote with their feet. If Conventional medics didn’t have patients given to them and it was more of an open market they would try much harder.

Edit 2:
####In response to NZ Homeopath. Obviously, New Zealand is much different the U.S. healthcare system, which is generally a free and open market. And no, I am not a medical doctor, but I do have a scientific educational background####

Fact guy you need to get your facts right mate. I’m an osteopath not a Homeopath. the 2 healthcare systems have virtually nothing in common. During my training we used the same books as medics, Learn’t how to do the same clinical tests, ortho tests, neuro tests the same A&P, Pathophysiology etc. is that scientific enough for ya?
how do you think we come to a diagnosis? Wave crystals over peoples knees perhaps?

###Ask any Medical Doctor from the United States if they practice “evidence based medicine”.###

I question the evidence base of a system which uses products tested and passed as safe by the same people develop them.

###And your argument is focused mainly on diagnosis, and yes, the patients don’t always present with textbook symptoms, but they still attempt to gain as much factual information as possible (lab tests, imaging, history, symptoms, etc). ####
Any doctor will tell you most of the information they get a majority of the time is from a case history. This leads you to investigate certain avenues. Not all tests are carried out on all patients all the time. Case history leads you to concluding which tests are indicated.

####More importantly, “evidence based medicine” must be employed when considering treatment options. For example, you don’t just “try” rubbing butter on a rash to see what happens.####
Why not? If you and your collegues have done this thousands of times before and found it effective why shouldn’t you?
Rubbing butter on the skin is unlikely to kill the patiet. taking a toxic chemical (pharma) may well do. 100,000 people die from adverse reactions to prescribed meds every year in the US.

###You use a clinically tested and approved treatment. When doctors treat patients, they deal with facts, not hunches.###
Who told you this?
Doctors work on hunches too. they don’t order MRI’s for everyone that walks through the door they come to a diagnosis based on signs and symptoms and these can be very misleading.

###If a doctor prescribes something, he should be able to tell you that this treament works on 85% of the people with your condition.###
You really need to check your facts. I’d like to know exactly how many meds work on 85% of the people with that condition. My guess is it wouldn’t be many.

###Whereas, most treatments from an alternative practioner is a “gray area” and they can’t really tell you exactly how long it will take or specifically how effective it will be.####
You can’t tell a patient how long they will be in pain for post surgery orr how effective a drug will be for them. It varies from one individual to another as does treatment from any other medical system.

###And I agree that the mainstream medicine is not immune from financial motivations, but its more likely to be the case with alternative practitioners.###
Show me some facts buddy.

###And I reject your premise that if your treatment didn’t
work, patients wouldn’t come back.###
So are my patients all stupid and delusional? Some of them probably are but if i couldn’t do what I say i can I would have a list of a few vulnerable patients which I would be milking. My list is not like that at all.

###You cater to an ideology of hope that is very prevalent. And the “experience” you provide is likely to be more enjoyable than a trip to a medical doctor, regardless of whether you actually treated them medically.###
Perhaps Doctors should do that if that is all there is to it.

####Because alternative practitioners generally spend more time and listen, and you can say in a warm soothing tone that you can “help them”, and they believe you.### You provide a powerful placebo that statistically should work for 30% of your patients. You can tell patients whatever they want to hear, whereas MD’s (burdened by facts) sometimes have to deliver bad news to patients and say, “I’m sorry but this drug for your Parkinson’s disease, isn’t a cure, and it’s going to have bad side effects and won’t even work that well.”###

I don’t treat parkinsons I treat musculoskeletal conditions and beleive me when i tell you that I don’t tell patients what they want to hear.
Have you ever had to tell anyone that they have a degenerative ondition which is only going to get worse and the best the patient can do is manage it?
I have to do this al the time.
Its obvious you’ve never had an osteopthic treatment. i suggest you do before making such asumptive and bold statements in the future.
Considerably more than 30% of my patients improve post treatment. Again i don’t think you understand what we do and what treatment involves. Get to know facts before bloggin Mr.

Answer by Fact Guy
Conventional Medical doctors are taught in medical school to practice what they call “evidence based medicine”. That means that they only use treatments that are proven to work (based on the best available current information). That also means that they leave the door open for changes to their practice, if new evidence suggests that they should. What conventional medical doctors do NOT do is treat patients based on a “hunch” or because they heard a story about it working on someone else. On rare occasions, with patients that are otherwise untreatable, they may attempt something without the backing of significant evidence. In that case, their decision is made based on years of experience and previous scientific education.

The philosophic “treatments” used by most alternative therapists, began with an idea or a belief about healing and health, made by a non-scientific lay-person. There is no initial testing, instead it is tried on patients. The ones that had positive results were used as “evidence”, even if the positive results were relatively rare. But they never accept that their technique didn’t work, rather that it still in the process of working. Eventually, the technique grows until there are literally hundreds of them that train each other and maybe even “certify” each other, making it seem legitimate. The driving force behind the growth is the desire from so many people to believe in these treatments. I also personally trust Medical Doctors more than alternative “doctors” for a few reasons. Conventional medical school has extraordinarily high admissions standards (only the top undergrad students are accepted), whereas many alternative health schools have very low admission standards. Also, alternative practitioners usually own their own business and thus are financially motivated to keep treating you, and even up-selling you on “treatment packages” for the future. Whereas, most medical doctors have no shortage of patients, so they don’t care if they don’t see you for another year. MD’s also don’t make any money on the drugs they prescribe, but if you buy a supplement, your money goes right to the guy who sold you it.

Edit: In response to NZ Homeopath. Obviously, New Zealand is much different the U.S. healthcare system, which is generally a free and open market. And no, I am not a medical doctor, but I do have a scientific educational background, and I’m very familiar with the training that various healthcare providers receive in the U.S., including doctors. Ask any Medical Doctor from the United States if they practice “evidence based medicine”. And your argument is focused mainly on diagnosis, and yes, the patients don’t always present with textbook symptoms, but they still attempt to gain as much factual information as possible (lab tests, imaging, history, symptoms, etc). More importantly, “evidence based medicine” must be employed when considering treatment options. For example, you don’t just “try” rubbing butter on a rash to see what happens. You use a clinically tested and approved treatment. When doctors treat patients, they deal with facts, not hunches. If a doctor prescribes something, he should be able to tell you that this treament works on 85% of the people with your condition. Whereas, most treatments from an alternative practioner is a “gray area” and they can’t really tell you exactly how long it will take or specifically how effective it will be. And I agree that the mainstream medicine is not immune from financial motivations, but its more likely to be the case with alternative practitioners. And I reject your premise that if your treatment didn’t work, patients wouldn’t come back. You cater to an ideology of hope that is very prevalent. And the “experience” you provide is likely to be more enjoyable than a trip to a medical doctor, regardless of whether you actually treated them medically. Because alternative practitioners generally spend more time and listen, and you can say in a warm soothing tone that you can “help them”, and they believe you. You provide a powerful placebo that statistically should work for 30% of your patients. You can tell patients whatever they want to hear, whereas MD’s (burdened by facts) sometimes have to deliver bad news to patients and say, “I’m sorry but this drug for your Parkinson’s disease, isn’t a cure, and it’s going to have bad side effects and won’t even work that well.”

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