[michh]

Another Dutchie here.

Anything not immediately fatal is indeed treated by just taking it easy and perhaps some paracetamol for the placebo effect.

I have a chronic illness in the same kind of category and it took me years to find out what it was and to get proper treatment. Which has improved my quality of life dramatically!

But even now I travel halfway across the country to a university hospital where a specialist takes me seriously, the GP is still a bit 'meh whatever'. I'm fairly sure he put a "psychosomatic/hypochondriac" flag on my file and never removed it when the specialists diagnosed me.

Our healthcare system has overcorrected on what they dismiss as 'aanstellerij' en 'Amerikaanse toestanden' and many in the field are actually quite proud of this.

[BobbyTables2]

Are you sure you aren’t in the US?

I find specialists here have zero intellectual curiosity. Sure, they recognize the most common condition in their field when blatantly obvious.

When it comes to the second most common issue in their field or anything not blatantly obvious (significant test result and 10/10 excruciating pain), they will just offer no diagnosis and go no further.

Just getting them to do an exam or even order a test is a huge challenge…

[IX-103]

It seems to depend on who you see and, probably, where you are in the country. Every time I go in to see my GP he seems to schedule a battery off lab work. And when I went to a dermatologist for an annual mole exam I left with prescriptions for dandruff and eczema.

[michh]

The first one I saw was like that. But I went for a Second Opinion, as is my right, and it was a world of difference.