First - Do No Harm (To Your Wallet)

[spyguy]

Heard this on the radio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32703632

Basically, the NHS doctors padding out their time.

The report spun it as caring charing doctors, but thats ******.

I would have just filed it away as a 'broadcast from the BMA (doctors union)'.

Then I rad this in the New Yorker:

Overkill An avalanche of unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially. What can we do about it?

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande

And decided the BMA is getting a response in before everyone starts saying 'Hye, my Gran went in for surgery and came back a cabbage'

This bit about one his friend's Dad going in for surgery struck a chord:

'It didn’t occur to Bruce until later to question what the doctors meant by “successful.” The blockages weren’t causing his father’s fainting episodes or any other impairments to his life. The operation would not make him feel better. Instead, “success” to the doctors meant reducing his future risk of a stroke. How long would it take for the future benefit to outweigh the immediate risk of surgery? The doctors didn’t say, but carotid surgery in a patient like Bruce’s father reduces stroke risk by about one percentage point per year. Therefore, it would take fifteen years before the benefit of the operation would exceed the fifteen-per-cent risk of the operation. And he had a life expectancy far shorter than that—very likely just two or three years. The potential benefits of the procedures were dwarfed by their risks.'

Followed by:

'Bruce’s father had a stroke during the cardiac surgery. “For me, I’m kicking myself,” Bruce now says. “Because I remember who he was before he went into the operating room, and I’m thinking, Why did I green-light an eighty-something-year-old, very diseased man to have a major operation like this? I’m looking in his eyes and they’re like stones. There’s no life in his eyes. There’s no recognition. He’s like the living dead.”'

My Mum works at an old folks home. There are forever trundling 80+ residents for major surgery. Very few of them come back in the same state they come in - think Jack Nicholson post-surgery in One Flew Over ...

Its just about keeping a load of overpaid, inept surgeons in grossly overpaid employment!

Get your jabs. Eat healthy. Don't smoke. Exercise. Avoid the doctors. And you'll be OK FFS!

[The Eagle]

Don't get your jabs. Eat healthy. Don't smoke. Exercise. Take your Vitamin D3 during winter. Avoid the doctors. And you'll be OK FFS!

Corrected for you.

[council dweller]

Well, I had stoke two years ago and the Doctor insisted that I get my BP down below 130 above 90

and then 120 above 80......then she wanted it lower and lower.

Why? Wasn't she making enough money out of me?

Doctors......don't trust `em.

[JoeDavola]

Doctors are great for medical emergencies....a broken leg, or an infection that needs a round of antibiotics.

But when it comes to chronic disease, you really need to look after yourself, and educate yourself on how to give yourself the best chance of being as healthy for as long as possible. Thankfully we have the interweb for that!

[council dweller]

Very true Joe.

In fact the consultant told after lowering her voice that "in fact in the case of a stroke like you had there`s nothing we can do.`

[R K]

Hindsight bias in the OP obviously, but there is clearly some truth in the over-medication claim.