Making our own decisions about our health

Let's get back to our "complaining" and the original question. We are here to help each other and not point fingers or sell our business.

Once Obama care care into existence the medical industry complex was not forewarned more patients were being signed up. Our healthcare system has not caught up yet to that influx of patients, which exacerbated when Covid hit the world. They are still trying to catch up too. Our general expectations of the medical care we receive needs to be adjusted so we do not have expectations that cannot be met by the current staffs.

Hello Making our Own Decisions About Our Health discussion members. I would just like to remind everyone of the Community Guidelines (https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/about-connect/tab/community-guidelines/) when discussing medical issues, knowledge and healthcare on Mayo Clinic Connect.

Mayo Clinic Connect, at its core, is about shared knowledge of the patient community to help one-another ask better questions and make more informed decisions in their own healthcare. Here are a couple of guidelines worth revisiting:

Be careful about giving out medical advice
- Sharing your own experience is fine, but don't tell other members what they should do.
- Experiences and information shared by members on the Mayo Clinic Connect are not a substitute for
professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
- Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the community.
- Postings such as advertisements for your business, get-rich-quick schemes or solicitations for a charity will be removed.

And most importantly, be polite.

Back to the conversation. @mikaylar, have you found that doing all of the research that you do has helped when you attend your appointments? I've always found that asking intelligent questions during appointments makes you an active participant in your appointment and is often greeted with a "that's a great question" and then followed typically by a thorough answer.

Thank you

Most times doctors do not mind questions; one doctor said, "Why do you ask so many questions?"

Ah Mikayla, you know what we're going to say about the doctor who asked "Why do you ask so many questions?"
There are 3 possible responses -
a quiet smile as you await their reply,
saying "I need to understand what is going on in my body because I have to live in it"
or (my favorite) "Are these poor questions? I really feel like I need more information and I would rather get it from you than from Dr. Google."
Care to give it a try?
Sue
PS I had to change primary providers (twice) this year after 20 years with the same person. The first was impressed by my "checklist" of items to cover in our initial consult. The second - back in my original clinic - said "[Original PCP] told me you always have good questions."

Thanks for the good tips.

Hmm, I think this absolutely confirms my previous post 🙂
Anyway, back to the topic, I think that many health systems aren’t built with redundancy to up regulate when there’s increasing demands. For instance, in Au, there have been studies that outline how aging populations and increasing levels of both physical and mental health disorders has overwhelmed the systems, while consecutive governments failed to invest appropriately in health care, resulting in many people who can afford the booming private care industry being the only ones who receive it, and the ones who rely on a broken public system often waiting up to 5 years for an appointment/procedure.
There’s also the case that many docs work in both systems, prioritising the private system which is a better work environment for them, lots of money in that system, and a different demographic of patient, which compounds the wait times in the public system.
Many experienced docs then end up completely shifting to the private system, never to see patients with the same problems in the public system (under their speciality), leaving the public system with many skills gaps. This is where we see lots of inexperience due to junior and overseas docs predominating the public spaces, extended timeframes for diagnosis, poor treatment of patients in terms of responding to questions and taking patients seriously (many people are labelled as inventing symptoms - however two problems with this exist: ineffective practitioner investigation leads to lack of evidence to work with in terms of producing a robust diagnosis, and why would anyone persist in trying to get help while they’re not well for years while being treated like they’re a liar; a liar would just give up), all resulting in poorer health outcomes and quality of life. There is a large part of the population here now that is living with many aspects of illness that could be helped by appropriate and timely investigation and interventions, but the system is broken.
There’s lots of exasperation felt by the docs in that system, and unfortunately much of it is directed at the vulnerable patients who then are not only trying to get help for their illnesses, they’re fighting off the frustrations of these health practitioners working in these systems.
This dynamic does make it hard to be able to have an equal footing when speaking to and asking questions of the docs in the public system. Sometimes it’s very adversarial if you ask a question.
How to get around this is difficult; sometimes I try to explain that I want to understand the disorder, hence why I’m asking (so they don’t take offence) but if they are in any way disrespectful, I do stand my ground - after all, they’re just a person who is paid to help, and should do what they can because they’re getting paid to do so, or find another way to earn a living..many of us have done jobs we find really hard or demanding, but we persist and do it with a smile 🙂

I agree with that. I don't have the time to read that long a post but to each his own.