Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable

From: sinister (sinister_at_nospam.invalid)
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:14:34 GMT

"robert j. kolker" <nowhere@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:381t1qF5io38aU1@individual.net...
>
>
> royls@telus.net wrote:
>>
>> Oh, just read the article, Bob, please. Hardware store customers are
>> reasonably competent to judge the value of what they are buying.
>> Patients are not.
>>
>
> I am more than reasonably competent to read the medical journals. If I can
> do it, so can others. I used to work for a firm that designed catheters
> and stents. I have a good grasp of the circulatory system and the heart
> (for a layman). I knew enough to tell if a doctor is bullshiting me. When
> I discuss diagnosis with my own physician (whom I picked) I make it a
> point to have him go through his reasoning process with me. I do knot know
> enough to pass a test for becoming a diagnostician (although I have
> written computer aid diagnosis programs), but I do know enough to tell
> whethere someone's thinking is sound.
>
> As far as I can tell medicine is a technical trade. So is being an
> engineer. In fact the propulsion system of the Saturn J-5 vehicle requires
> more technical expertise than most Md-s have. I have yet to meet an Md who
> knows quantum theory or can scan a Feynman Diagram. I can do that. In
> general I am smarter and better educated than most of the doctors I have
> met or had attend my medical needs.

All you're saying is that you're smarter than many doctors. That doesn't
establish that patients are smart enough to seek care that will benefit them
in the long term.

> Now if I can be that smart, so can anyone else. Anyone can master
> differential equations, topological manifolds and quantum physics if they
> put their minds to it.

??

> So don't tell me the public is too dumb to understand medical treatment
> and to judge those who dispense it.

I don't think *doctors* are smart enough. That's why these systems have to
be designed from the top-down.

> Bob Kolker

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