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by chriscross 1679 days ago
That’s horribly ignorant considering that many diseases have a large genetic component and people are rarely 100% compliant with the things they need to do to prevent a disease. Even when a doctor lets them know how to prevent the disease. How would this work for a disease, for example, like Alzheimer’s where the onset is much earlier in life (40s) but doesn’t manifest until much later in life and has no diagnostic test at age 40? What about hypertension where the majority of it is idiopathic? Would the doctor be blamed for all this despite practicing evidenced based medicine? I’d argue that a lot of diseases are this way and placing the blame on a doctor is a way to shift personal responsibility.
1 comments
oaktrout 1679 days ago
Seconding your view points. If a patient dies from a hypertension related cause (say stroke), and the patient has not followed the strict low salt diet the doctor recommended, does the doctor pay for that? At what point does the doctor stop seeing patients who do not follow their recommendations to the exact letter?
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R0b0t1 1679 days ago
I know you're framing it as patient choice, but it would incentivize doctors to actually want to research new solutions instead of give stale advice that doesn't seem to work.
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chriscross 1678 days ago
Do you really think that doctors don't keep up on education? All doctors are required to do continuing education every year to keep up to date on the latest advances. Most I know go to national conferences to learn more about their speciality. Then you have the portion of doctors that conduct research and actively advance medicine. Most doctors I know (anecdotal, I know) are constantly striving to do more, to learn more because they care. Doctors know how much responsibility they have to help people and even save lives.
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R0b0t1 1678 days ago
> Do you really think that doctors don't keep up on education?

No, I know they don't.

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oaktrout 1677 days ago
The advice works if patients listen (which is patient choice). Reducing salt intake and losing weight are simple ways to lower blood pressure and they are also effective.
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