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by loudmax 805 days ago
I do want to offer a limited defense of the medical community's "lack of open-mindedness". By the nature of their job, their work is inherently life risking. Most of us working in IT can afford to make experiments that doctor's cannot afford. I may be willing to try some unconventional approaches if the cost of error is an application crash and nuisance to the end user. If the cost of error is death of the user, I'm going to be far more conservative.

When a patient dies, society will treat a doctor very differently if it's perceived that the doctor was being unorthodox compared to too cautious. This doesn't mean that too cautious doesn't also cost lives. It's just really difficult to balance when the stakes are so high.

Anyway, good on you for taking ownership of your own health, and thank you for sharing your experience. I hope you continue to get better.

1 comments

I'd respect this defense of medicine if medicine had resisted the U.S. dietary guidelines, which started as pseudoscience chosen by politics in the 1970s. Instead of being conservative about evidence and risks, the profession mostly was conservative about questioning that imposed consensus.