In all cases, unfortunately, you have to educate yourself as best you can and be your own best advocate. I recall a long time ago that my ex came down with pneumonia because an ER doc erroneously concluded that he was gay based on where he lived and his profession (musician) and gave him a course of treatment that you only prescribe to people who have a specific kind of infection that's related to AIDS. He ended up terribly sick with a really bad case of pneumonia. It was something like that - my memory is a bit hazy.
With chronic things like fibromyalgia you have to try and see what helps.
My dermatologist said that if an alt treatment wasn't going to hurt, then he didn't see the harm in trying it.
It's a thorny issue, no doubt about that. And I decree that we call Phar "The Professor" on account of all his lecturin' of us miseducated folks.
On another note, I had my first real sangria of the year! Yay!
How do you determine if an alt treatment isn't going to do harm? Remember, we're talking about things that have little to no basis in reality and little to no evidence put forth in investigating their safety and efficacy. Would it not be better to sign up for a clinical trial for something with real potential (not many things make it to the clinical trial stages in science-based medicine) so as to better increase your chance of success and to be a data point for the future? While I think people should be advocates for themselves and be as informed as possible, the best way to do this is to avoid alt med and get multiple doctors' opinions.
I "lecture" because I consider these topics super important, as I think you all do, as well. I'm not a doctor but I do have a background in science (Chemistry) and have spent half of my free time over the last 2 years reading, listening and watching scientific skeptics such as David Gorski, Aron Ra, concordance, Myles Power, and many others. We're all miseducated to some extent, which is why I recommend the browser app
RbutR to everyone to help reduce the amount of misinformation we absorb. Keep in mind that there is good reason that scientific institutions don't take alt med seriously (and when they do, they are
harshly critiqued for wasting time, money, and giving credibility to unscientific nonsense)
Oh, and I have anecdotes, too:
http://whatstheharm.net/
I never said that other methods necessarily had less errors, just that "real" doctors and medicine weren't as perfect a method as you make them sound.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...71a374-9af4-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html This is one of the first articles I found about misdiagnosis, was not hard at all to find and it's well cited.
Diagnosis of disease is indeed difficult, which is why you shouldn't claim to have the only method that works.
Up to 20% of boys in school now are diagnosed with ADHD in america.
But we can't even agree if ADHD is a real disease. I think that goes against your method that you claim they are using.
I am not more biased because of my mother's background, I am more informed. I didn't just believe what society told me to believe, I formed my own opinion.
Healthcare in America is indeed screwy. Doctors get kickbacks for prescribing more drugs, and they get silly amounts for a surgery. It's part of the American psyche to trust doctors blindly, and that's a recipe for disaster. I have no idea about any other country though.
If I made doctors sound perfect or near perfect, then I apologize, because that wasn't my intent. My intent was to illustrate the point that their medical practices are based on strong science and evidence. Their training is significantly longer and more inclusive of information that reflects reality than that of alt med practitioners (no homeopathy here!), and hence, they are more reliable than any alt med practitioner. That, and alt med practitioners aren't reliable
at all, since their education is full of pseudoscience.
Better ADHD controversy info
here than regular google search. What I see is a consensus that ADHD exists in the literature, but I only skimmed the article. I didn't bother to read about over/misdiagnosis because I'll concede that it is probably one of the things doctors frequently do incorrectly. given the list of 5 items on the link I provided. The prescriptions are evidence-based and the existence of ADHD is evidence-based, however, so it is not unscientific.
I don't think being the son of someone in the alt med community makes on more informed. I would argue for the exact argument, since you're likely to have heard a lot of anti-science propaganda over the year because that's what these people are led to believe after their 4 years or so of study. It's easy to allow confirmation bias and anecdotes convince someone that what they do is not only safe and effective, but better than the alternative, when you've been trained to think that way. For example, it seems like just about every clinical trial on something like acupuncture or homeopathy that doesn't show efficacy will have a conclusion that says "more study needs to be done". How much study is needed? Why didn't they just finally design a study with good sample size so they wouldn't have this excuse? Oh wait, the best-designed studies show no efficacy.
This is the kind of propaganda I'm talking about:
"It's part of the American psyche to trust doctors blindly, and that's a recipe for disaster. "
How much do doctors get in kickback? I'm aware that some doctors have this issue and have admitted that. Is it really so pervasive that one should see an alt med practitioner who's diagnostic tools, treatment, and existence of disease are questionable to begin with?
Ok, as for the misdiagnosis article. Yes, misdiagnosis is a big deal and it's hard to improve that. Unsurprisingly, the way to improve that is through scientific means. To quote a few parts of your article:
“There is probably nothing more cognitively complicated” than a diagnosis, he said, “and the fact that we get it right as often as we do is amazing.”
But doctors often don’t know when they’ve gotten it wrong. Some patients affected by misdiagnosis simply find a new doctor; unless the mistake results in a lawsuit, the original physician is unlikely to learn that he blew it — particularly if the discovery is delayed.
“
Overconfidence in our abilities is a major part of the problem,” said Graber, who believes doctors have gotten a pass for too long when it comes to diagnostic accuracy. “ Physicians don’t know how error-prone they are.” (I highlighted this one because it exactly describes alt med practitioners.
Anyway, since you have clarified your position,
"I never said that other methods necessarily had less errors, just that "real" doctors and medicine weren't as perfect a method as you make them sound."
can you tell me whether or not you believe that alt med practitioners (you can be more specific, such as TCM or NDs or whatever) are better at diagnosis than doctors?
Google