I don’t exactly know why I decided to just take a peek to see if there were other people who feel about doctors etc. like me and if their reasons were the same or similar enough.  This was the first site I pulled up and was surprised because this gentleman went a bit further than just his own personal experiences to research far more.  While I do definitely go to a doctor when I’m in pain or experiencing something highly terrifying, I found this man’s reasons for mistrust are equal to my own:

http://chetday.com/donttrustdoctors.htm

Why I Don’t Trust Doctors

by Josh Day

Largely, I do not trust doctors, and I certainly do not trust the American medical establishment.

I have never been comfortable around a physician for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the hierarchy between doctor and patient is a little too much like the relationship between the subjugator and the subjugated: take off your clothes, sit on this bench, say aahh, get ready for this shot, ingest these drugs, etc. If you trust the man or woman in the shamanistic white robe, then this hierarchy is natural and beneficial. However, if there is even the slimmest of doubts, the whole system is rendered bankrupt.

If you doubt your doctor’s ability to solve your medical problems, then why do you go to his office and subject yourself to his pokings and proddings? When you give an M.D. control of your decisions, then by that action you make her the superior, and you the subordinate.

In most cases, the doctor-patient relationship is a flawed system. Below I offer some numbers that prove my point.

The following comes from a JAMA article written by Barbara Starfield, MD

“The medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans. According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:

  * 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
  * 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals
  * 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
  * 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
  * 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America’s healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.”

According to Starfield’s cited numbers, nearly a quarter million Americans are killed by the medical establishment each year. She goes on to say these deaths are third only to heart disease and cancer.

Heart disease and cancer are diagnosed by this same flawed system, so logic would purport that some of the deaths from the first and second causes of American mortality are actually direct results of misdiagnosis, unnecessary surgery, and the other factors listed above.

Given this argument, a conservative number of medical-induced deaths would be a quarter million a year, and a more liberal—and probably more accurate—number would be half a million people killed every year by doctors, drugs, and hospitals.

Half a million people.

And here we have the AMA quoting this outlandish number of 36,000 deaths related to last year’s flu strain, as well as pushing a questionable and possibly worthless or dangerous vaccine.

  “Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, the flu shot is recommended for an estimated 174 million Americans—including those who are elderly, very young or immunocompromised, and those who work in the health care delivery system. Still, many people go without, leading to illness, complications and an average of 36,000 US deaths each year. Additionally, in the last two decades, flu-related hospitalizations have increased from 114,000 to more than 200,000 annually.

  ‘That’s unacceptable,’ said AMA Trustee Herman I. Abromowitz, MD. He spoke at a Washington, D.C., briefing held last month by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the National Coalition for Adult Immunization.

  Their message: Flu can be deadly but also can be prevented.

  ‘The influenza virus ... must be taken seriously by the health care community, as well as the American public, every fall and every winter,’ said William Schaffner, MD, NFID board member and chair of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn.”

According to these shamans in white lab coats, we are to take this dubious number of 36,000 seriously. That is a mere 7.2% of the whopping half million Americans who die under the scalpel, in the hospital room, or by dangerous chemicals injected into their bodies.

So what is to be done? Probing for answers from the rest of the industrialized world, Starfield looks at the Japanese health care system:

“By citing [the above] statistics, Starfield (2000) highlights the need to examine the type of health care provided to the US population. The traditional medical paradigm that emphasizes the use of prescription medicine and medical treatment has not only failed to improve the health of Americans, but also led to the decline in the overall well-being of Americans. Starfield

Wow.  Where to start?

  Maybe with the hyper-inflated numbers.  Yes, people die from mistakes every year. It IS a problem.  But it is a recognized problem, and steps are taken every day to try and prevent just those mistakes!  The other factor the quoted author forgets (and it is NOT one of accidental omission, as I have seen this time and again from the ALT. lobbyists.) to add in to the equation, is the number of lives SAVED or helped during the same period!  I have spent the last two weeks (and more) reading on vaccines, homeo-whackery, and whatnot, and while Medicine acknowledges mistakes, sCAM lobbyists offer NO real alternatives. (Other than hoping it gets better on its own.) The only way a substance/therapy/surgery can HELP a person is if it is bio-active or possible harmful (If used in the wrong way.)  The sCAM treatments can only harm (or cure) by association, since their “treatments” have been proven time and again to have AT THE VERY BEST, a negligible effect on their ‘patients’.  Every single study, trial, and experiment has shown results no better than random noise or placebo. (Remember, for every 20 studies performed, 1 will show a significant effect just through sheer odds.)

  I dislike doctors and hospitals. Adamantly.  They tend to bring me pain and rarely have a “cure”. (They call me their ‘mutant’ patient.)   And yet, from what I have seen and studied, there is no other real alternative!  There is no such thing as “Alternative” Medicine.  Either it works, can be PROVEN to work beyond doubt, can be shown to work reliably over time, (In which case it is called Medicine, with a capital “M”.) or it doesn’t/can’t. 

  Besides, if any of these ‘other’ techniques actually worked, don’t you think that the “Big, Bad, Evil, Pharma Companies” would snatch it up and use it to make a quick dollar?  Abso-friggin-lutely they would. That, more than anything, shows the rest is crap.  I have enough faith in the greed of men to know that if say, homeopathy, were real medicine, “Big Pharma” would have taken it over decades ago. (After all, selling vials of untreated “magic water” that requires NO ingredientsto speak of to make THOUSANDS of gallons of product?  They would be on that in a burning second!)

  I think that the fear/loathing that many of these other disciplines have and spread about Medicine and Drugs is stupid and harmful.  Millions have been saved using Evidence Based Medicine. When Faith Based Treatments begins to make gains like that, then I’ll consider it for myself and my kids.  Until then I’ll stick to what I know has been proven to be safe and effect (if used properly).

  Of all people, I know what it is like to find out that Medicine has little or nothing to offer, except for pain relief. (Which they are quite good at, nowadays.)  It would be easy to wander like a gadfly from ‘treatment’ to ‘treatment’, seeking relief.  But all that would do is waste my money and time. Eventually it will be Science, Actual Research, and Medicine which will bring around a cure for my condition(s), not “Magic Water” or “Fairy Leaves’.

And as this wonderful blog entry states about getting the flu vaccine:

There are multiple potential benefits from the flu vaccine:

1) You do not get the flu this year.

1a) You have a milder case of flu.

b) You do not pass the flu to others.

iii) You do not die of flu.

IV) You do not die of short term complications of flu.

FIve) You do not die of long term complications of flu.

6) You may not get the flu in the future with other strains.  It would appear that those who had the 1976 swine flu vaccine has some protection against the 2009 strain and since strains of flu keep returning, if there is a mismatch in the flu and the vaccine this year, it may give you benefit in the future.

One of the arguments against the efficacy of the flu vaccine as a preventative against death is the fact that those who get the vaccine have decreased mortality when there is no circulating flu.  It is suggested that the decreased mortality is not due to the flu vaccine, but that those who get the vaccine are healthier.

I think, given time to read everything I can on the subject, I will come to the same conclusion overall.  It may not stop death, but people with access to it end up healthier.

And Huli, I’m sorry if i come across angry or something. Please understand it is NOT directed at you.

i have just been reading story after story where people left their common sense in the car or something and ended up harming/killing themselves or their loved ones. (Esp children.)

I hope you know i respect your opinions and would not willingly do anything to anger/hurt you or anyone else here on the forum.

K?

K.

I was going to say the same thing about the number of people that were saved as a result of doctors, Dave!

I have a complicated relationship with doctors.  I tend to believe the things they tell me…I do try to ask questions so I understand more.  I try to research on my own so I understand the treatment & complications.  But when I disagree with them…they take it personally.  It’s *my* health after all.  Why can’t I disagree that option A isn’t something I want to purse?  Option B works.  But the doctor LIKES Option A better.  They have the same number of pro & cons…And to me the cons for Option B outweigh the cons for Option A.  If it wasn’t a viable option…it wouldn’t exist, right?  I shouldn’t get an argument over it.  If the doctor feels so strongly about Option A…then they should tell me, and let me decide if I want to remain under their care.  They shouldn’t fight with me about it.

No Dave and I don’t disagree with you either.  I’ve no idea how long ago this gentleman wrote all this either.  Erik too said that numbers given were inflated and actually said pretty much what you’ve said too. 

I get vaccinated for the flu believe me, even though it’s not via my doctor’s advice or at her office.  AND, when or if I’m really sick or in terrible pain or feel something significantly odd, I go to the doctor (or even the ER depending on the immediacy). 

There are areas of this person’s report though that I do feel may have some merit.  For example, I suffered for 20 years of significant, dibilitating pain even to passing out from it several times and taken to the emergency room:  carried there in someone’s aarms or by vehicle.  My doctors (I had various ones over the course of those years) put me through a variety of painful and sickening tests and even a few procedures guessing at causes when they were not able to ‘see’ anything they could readily identify through tests. 

The first tests were for gall bladder but because they could not see individual stones they didn’t want to do surgery.  Finally an indian doctor realized there was something significant going on and did surgery to find my gall bladder completely impacted and infected (not stones but a giant rock filling the entire bladder) and infection to my liver as a result of this having gone on so many years.  So part of my liver had to be removed along with my gall bladder (liver tissue does grow back quickly). 

I’ve also gone in for routine physicals and then given medications such as statin which nearly killed me on the second day, impaired breathing, body wide pain, etc. another medication caused seizures.  I have not just side effects, but dangerous adverse affects to many medications. 

I presently take no prescriptions at all, and at my age that appears to be non-typical or usual.  But then I have not had a physical for nearly 3 years (Erik gets his).

Yeah.. I wouldn NOT be surprised to find, say, Nancy Malik’s name attached to that article.. or the Power Balance idiots.. or any number of the quacksters we see rummaging around this place. This is exactly the sort of ‘woo! scary doctors!’ language they like to use.

Let’s play a game - let’s change every instance of ‘doctor’ in that article with ‘auto repairman’. Then I’ll believe it.

One thing I wonder is how many of those people who supposedly died due to errors would have died anyway, from whatever was originally wrong with them.

When I was younger (22) I wanted a vacetomy… but my doctor said I didn’t know what I wanted and refused to authorize me to go to a specialist for the procedure (I have insurance that requires my primary phasician to send me to a specialist for stuff). I had my first child at 23… then I went back to my physician and asked for a vacetomy… he said I was too young and didn’t know what I wanted. I had my second child when I was 26 and finally he said I was old enough and knew what I wanted… Thing is - now I have two kids to raise and I never really wanted any. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but I still feel like my life was dictated by the experience of my physician and HIS thoughts on life rather than my desires and needs. He has never prospered from my children because I did NOT allow him to be thier physician.

This same man refused to accept that I was suffering from a kidney stone for over 6 month… until after three visits to an emergency room in the middle of the night and a final experience where my urine came out brown did he finally send me to a specialist (ironically, the same guy who eventually gave me the vacectomy) who recognized and had me sent to surgury to have the stone removed as it was too large to pass on it’s own.

I am the fool to continue to see this man who I am comfortable with despite my belief that he practices “old school” medicine and hasn’t kept abreast of the best treatment options. I may be wrong, but at least I know what to expect from this guy. My other option is to wait until his office hours are closed and go to one of the many “ready-care” offices for diagnosis and prescriptions.

Okay, I read the article that Hulitoons linked to, and I read Dr. Starfield’s study that the guy who wrote that article (Josh Day) mentions, and then I read the studies that Dr. Starfield used to base her own study on.

And it comes down to Day basically being a fruitloop.

I figured right away that there was something wrong when I saw that his “quotations” of Dr. Starfield’s study weren’t actually genuine quotations from it.  Basically, he re-wrote things in his own way and then featured them as being Dr. Starfield’s own words; every single time that he is “quoting” Dr. Starfield he is actually making up his own interpretation of what Starfield wrote and presenting it as her own words.  Then there’s the way in which he makes use some bits of her study, and then proceeds to totally ignore the other parts of it that disagree with his own ideas.

So, here’s my own take on Day’s article.

Why I Don’t Trust Doctors
by Josh Day

Largely, I do not trust doctors, and I certainly do not trust the American medical establishment.

I have never been comfortable around a physician for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the hierarchy between doctor and patient is a little too much like the relationship between the subjugator and the subjugated: take off your clothes, sit on this bench, say aahh, get ready for this shot, ingest these drugs, etc. If you trust the man or woman in the shamanistic white robe, then this hierarchy is natural and beneficial. However, if there is even the slimmest of doubts, the whole system is rendered bankrupt.

If you doubt your doctor’s ability to solve your medical problems, then why do you go to his office and subject yourself to his pokings and proddings? When you give an M.D. control of your decisions, then by that action you make her the superior, and you the subordinate.

Oddly enough, many of the various studies and articles that Day uses in this article actually point out the opposite.  They’ve found that many of the problems of the medical world, as well as many of the difficulties doctors face, are due to the patients having so much power and influence over the doctors.  Such as doctors not wanting to give medications to the patients, but the patients demanding it anyway.  Or the doctors not really wanting to perform an operation on a patient, but the patient demanding it.

In most cases, the doctor-patient relationship is a flawed system. Below I offer some numbers that prove my point.

The following comes from a JAMA article written by Barbara Starfield, MD

“The medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans. According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:
12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals
20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs
Thus, America’s healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.”

Day presents that as an actual direct quotation, but it’s not.  Here’s the actual part of Dr. Starfield’s study that Day is referencing:

[color=red]

The first part, the

The

It’s obvious that of the number of ADR’s that occur, the percentage of those that are fatal have been drastically reduced by the later years studied.  If we are to take an average of those numbers, we’d get 0.22%.  That’s the average of all of those percentages for all of those years. . .but look at how it compares to the actual numbers for the last decade or two.  It’s nothing at all like the real numbers.  And the percentage of ADR’s total has also shown a gradual downwards trend, though it’s a much less drastic one than that for the fatal ones.

The problem with the work of Lazarou and his coworkers is that it doesn’t take into account any actual patterns during the chosen time frame.  It assumes that everything remained steady and constant, which it obviously didn’t.  They used a total percentage of 0.32% to get their 106000 deaths for 1994. . .but 0.32% has absolutely no similarity to the actual numbers for the years around 1994.  106000 is almost certainly a huge overestimate, probably by at least four times.  And if we’re going to do what Day has done and extrapolate today’s number based on the above data, the real number would likely be even lower than 1994’s numbers.

I couldn’t find where Dr. Starfield got the rest of her numbers in that list, but we’ve already seen that there are some major assumptions and problems involving the ones that we could look at.  They’re all either totally baseless or else probably great overestimates.  I don’t have any great faith in the rest of the numbers, either.

So, the