Reply #16: Yes, there ARE that many quacks

[hinachan]

And I think I've been to 45% of them in my lifetime, alone!

Took me 15 years to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), 10 years to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Why? Because doctors are so sexist, that as soon as they saw someone underweight and confined to a wheelchair, the one thing that came to their minds was: "eating disorder".

Never have had an eating disorder, just had such bad mania that it caused stress-related IBS and stomach trouble that caused me to get weak and lose that much weight.

Doctors are the reason the health care crisis exists today...patients like me have to go from doctor to doctor, trying desperately to get diagnosed, and our insurance companies pay the price. (I'm the rule, rather than the exception; statistics show that on average, FMS patients aren't diagnosed for 10 years, bipolar patients aren't diagnosed for 8 years. That's on average...for many people, like me, it takes years longer.

Years and thousands of dollars, which are putting people in the poorhouse (that's why I'm on welfare now, while waiting for disability to deign to accept me) and these doctors are gouging insurance companies all these years, doing nothing for their patients. Yet they bitch on the rare occasions that someone sues for malpractice!

And lest you think it's just hard-to-diagnose patients going through this wringer, try this on for size:

My aunt has had a stroke and congestive heart failure. Her mother had the same. Therefore, years ago, when her legs started to swell, I suggested that she see her doctor for a referral to a cardiologist, because edema is one of the first symptoms of CHF. Her doctor flatly refused to refer her to a cardiologist. A couple years ago, my aunt couldn't swallow, and she had an appt. with her doctor, so my mom took her there to see what was going on. Pretty soon, my aunt's face drooped on the left side, and vomit was dripping from her mouth. When my mother told the receptionist about this, and asked to see the doc because it was an emergency, you want to know what the bitch had the nerve to say when she came out?

"What's all the commotion about?"

Well, that "commotion" turned out to be a stroke, the effects of which could've been minimized with the administration of medication when it first happened--i.e., if the doctor hadn't been such a bitch, forcing them to wait, when they knew there was an emergency, she could've called an ambulance. As it is, my aunt's regained some use of the left side of her face, and she can now eat without observation...but she'd have been a lot better off with a compassionate doctor getting her treatment in time.

They ran a bunch of tests on her in the hospital, and still missed the congestive heart failure which sent her to the hospital again just a short time later.

All this happened in the Mayo Clinic system, folks, Mayo being (supposedly) one of the greatest clinics in the world. In this clinic, by the way, it's protocol for doctors not to deign to speak to the employees; only to other doctors, because the "little people" aren't good enough for them. I know this for a fact--my mother used to work there, for over a decade.

Bottom line: DO NOT tell me there are good doctors around. Good doctors are the MINORITY, quacks the VAST MAJORITY. All they care about is money, golf, and expensive cars, in that order. I hope every single doctor who has ever screwed over an innocent patient burns in the deepest depths of hell, for the majority of them are like George W. Bush: unfeeling, uncaring, greedy bastards who prey on the weakest of the weak.

End of story.