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Saturday, January 03, 2009

Experts... aren't.

Worth remembering. Also, avoid doctors and hospitals to remain healthy.

Second Opinions | Mark's Daily Apple:
"...I find that this happens all too often in many other areas (tech support from Mumbai that has you defragging your disc or reinstalling your operating system when a patch or reboot would have done), but most notably in medicine. How often do we all hear stories of expensive surgeries undertaken because a battery of tests (that weren’t that solid to begin with) “indicated” that there was a problem that needed fixing? Many prophylactic mastectomies or prostate biopsies or quadruple bypasses are probably not necessary (in my humble opinion). Yet they can severely compromise lives forever if they really weren’t necessary or if a few lifestyle interventions might have done a much better trick. How about the prescribing of multiple drugs to address symptoms or bring a few “out-of-norm” numbers back into the proper range? And then prescribing additional drugs to offset the side-effects of the first drugs - all based on sketchy diagnoses. My knee surgery last year would not have been necessary had my doctor not hastily shot cortisone under my kneecap. Long story. But, hey, he only had seven minutes of office visit time to make the (wrong) diagnosis and, hey, he was my friend. Oh well, my bad. If anyone should have seen that coming it was me.

I tell anyone who will listen that lawyers, doctors and CPAs don’t have answers. They only have opinions and sometimes those opinions are no better (and often worse) than your own instincts. This is why we at MDA are on a mission to try to help you better understand how your body works, so you can make educated, informed decisions when it comes to matters of health. Armed with an understanding of what might truly be behind your problem, that little extra you pay for a second or even third opinion might just make the difference."

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