Who cares about your health? You.
Maybe your family. Possibly only you.
Your attorney cares as long as it results in payment.
Who can you trust? No one.
Recently physicians have been examining their own medical records. Some are astonished at what their own doctors have documented about them. Some physicians aparently can’t be bothered to provide acceptable healthcare to other physicians.
So your doctor does lots of tests. He must be good right? He must care, right? Wrong. Lets looks at the MRI scanner. Hospitals and free-standing centers are installing them at a breath-taking pace. Why? Do they save lives? Do they improve diagnosis? No. They make money. My veterinarian diagnosed my dog’s ACL tear in 3 minutes with simple bedside tests the same way that human orthopedic surgeons have diagnosed the condition for decades. What does the MRI add? Nice pictures and excess expense. It is generally a valueless study done to bolster the confidence of a minimally skilled physician. Don’t misunderstand, some MRIs are useful, necessary even. Many are not. For some patients the study might even be dangerous. The CT scan your doctors wants “just to look” might also be hazardous.
So what should you do? Ask your doctor what the test will be used for. Ask explicitly how it will change your diagnosis or therapy. Will the results change your prognosis and do you want to know about the change? If the test does not have real use and changes nothing it offers you no value except possibly prognosis. You should not get tests just to satisfy your physician’s “intellectual curiosity”. You are not a lab animal. Previously I worked at a hospital that had four MRI scanners. They ran twelve hours a day six days a week. The vast majority of the studies were unnecessary. Neither the radiologists nor the hospital were going to force the ordering physician to justify the studies since the radiologists and the hospital both make money from the MRI (at that hospital the MRI center was the single largest revenue producer). You should not be treated as a “revenue center.” If your doctor is not helping you- find another one.
Finally, maybe the government cares? No. A Rhode Island Hospital had three wrong-side surgeries before being fined. Why did it take three significant medical errors for the state to intervene? Why is the state allowing the hospital to operate at all? The government can’t assess hospitals well so it’s not surprising that it can’t discipline them. Make no mistake, patients suffer from this lax attitude by the government and hospitals.
Additionally, you should note that the first case was started by a resident. Readers will remember that up to 70% of errors are attributable to inadequate supervision of residents. You should always discuss with your surgeon or physician what role residents will have then commit that understanding to writing.
It’s your health. You must care. There may not be anyone else who cares.
