How do you all feel about your health services/doctor? Do you use other resources to look after your health?

I imagine there are still good doctors out there but my experience with the (Canadian) health care system in the last several weeks has seriously called into doubt my previous belief in doctors.

Someone mentioned that they grew up in the era where you believed what your doctor told you. I also grew up with this belief. That is no longer valid for me.

I have seen incompetence, greed, laziness, and a general disregard for the patients they are supposed to be helping in the last few weeks.

I am starting to head into the end of middle age and now I'm really scared of growing old. I thought the health care system would assist me but I was wrong.

I guess the care and maintenance of my body really is totally up to me now. I have a good start on the process of aging though and have been reasonably healthy all my life.

And thank goodness for groups like 3FC. We all need some support from somewhere and I'm really glad I've got this site to help me. Thanks for listening!

Dagmar

Hi Dagmar, You sound very upset with the health care system. I agree, it can be very annoying, to try to get good care. I work in a local hospital and see a lot of doctors caring for their patients. some are better than others. Very few don't care. Most of them are very concerned with what happens to their patients. Some have a good bedside manner and can express it, and some don't. Bit I see the work they put into trying to work things out.

If you're really not happy with your Dr., change. I actually shopped around for one I could relate to.

Basically, it does come down to, we are responsible for caring for ourselves, with the help of a Dr. Being knowledgeable helps, but you have to trust your Dr.

Some of the Old Doctors are still in the mind set of (do as I say and don't ask questions). Most of the new ones are open to questions and teaching.

Sorry if you've had a bad experience, Freda

Mudpie I agree with slim me.....it really is too bad you're having such a bad experience. I still trust my Dr to do his level best to help me stay healthy but I agree it's up to me to put in the effort and make the sacrifices needed to improve my health and give me the best chance to age in the best shape possible. Dr.s cannot do it for us, they can only advise and hand out drugs. I really dislike drugs so I work to avoid them.

I want to say your signature is perfect........it gave me a jar as I saw it. Maintenance = Mindfulness.........so true! I think I'll borrow that from you.
You're taking control early in this weight game and I commend you for that. Great example to others.


Slim Me......congratulations on such a great weight loss. You've really put your back to this effort. Now for the "Mindfulness" part of the battle. Good luck!!!!

Hi mudpie!
I am also from Canada, way out here in the middle of the prairie. Being from the home of Tommy Douglas, I couldn't be more proud of the healthcare system. I feel very safe and very taken care of. I would say that I am a person who is more concerned with preventative care, but having said that-- my husband has had two major surgeries in the past two years and he's been treated well and quickly. And we're supposedly in a doctor's shortage here. I agree that you should change your GP if you can, and if you're not satisfied.

Im not yet a maintainer, but ... I like my gen. practice doctor. She's young and nice and easy to talk to. And if I ever had a serious or even not-so-serious health condition, I would definitely trust what she would have to say, and I would trust the doctors she would refer me to as well.

BUT, just to tie it in with weightloss, I generally DON'T trust the healthcare system with weightloss information. I think most doctors just "tow the line", promoting a low-fat, high-carb diet to everyone, even though MANY people do much better on low-carb, higher-fat diets. I've also heard (though I've never experienced this), that certain doctors even prescribe 800-900 calorie/day diets, which are so ridiculously bad for you even though, yes, you will in all likelihood lose weight.

The one thing I also don't like, in general, about our healthcase system is how liberally doctors prescribe medications, even for problems that can be solved in non-medicinal ways. My fiance had a small bout of depression last year... I think it was caused by some homesickness, my long work hours, spending whole days all alone with no one to talk to, and a weird work schedule that turned his whole routine upside down. He told his doctor about his problem and the doctor IMMEDIATELY prescribed him an anti-depressant. I told my fiance not to take it and he didn't. Instead, he started working more and making a few friends. We also started working out together a few nights a week and my workload decreased, so I was able to be with him more. His depression eventually abated. I wish the dr would have recommended.. I dunno... MAYBE therapy, suggested my fiance socialize a bit more, or something. But no, he immediately prescribed pills to a guy who's NEVER Been depressed before in his life and who just made a huge life transition by moving to the US.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my medical care but I live in the US and have a generous insurance plan that allows me to see doctors at a very high quality clinic (that covers just about every specialty there is) and allows me to self-refer to specialists. I know Canada is different, but people in the US that don't have insurance or that don't have good insurance definitely suffer in terms of medical care.

I also think you get out of it what you put into it. You have to educate yourself and you have to be proactive about your health. Ask questions, know your doctor's limitations, and insist on seeing specialists for anything beyond very basic problems. Colds, flus, rashes, and preventative care are about all I use my GP for. Anything else, from a bladder infection, to a sports injury, to more serious conditions like digestive issues, I see a specialist. If your GP's treatment doesn't produce results within a reasonable time frame, see a specialist. And if the first specialist can't come up with a solution, go to another one. General practitioners just don't have the training to treat anything very complicated. Likewise, most doctors aren't good resources for diet issues. At least in the US, nutrition is not part of a medical education. So I take anything a doctor tells me with respect to nutrition and diet with a grain of salt. The fact is, they probably don't know a whole lot more than I do about these subjects. And unless I'm talking to a sports medicine specialist, I think the same thing goes for exercise.

I think the problem is that we (and by we, I mean general American society) have encouraged this type of response from the doctors. In general, our society doesn't want to WORK for anything. We want the quick fix, the miracle drug, the 21st century science to make everything perfect.

Look at weight loss - very few people actually want to eat properly and exercise. They want the miracle loss. The pill. The plan. The book. Anything they can pop and forget and get the results.

Look at a lot of parents (not all, mind you, but a great many) who dose their kids with Ritalyn and other drugs rather than taking the time to work with them and manage their diets and exercise.

Look at people who aren't willing to wait out a viral infection and demand that the doctor give them antibiotics - not caring that antibiotics have no effect on viruses, but wanting that "pill" that will make them feel better.

Look even at several of the threads on this site where people have said that they have gotten upset when their doctors have mentioned weight loss to them (there's a thread going on right now about how health care professionals should address weight loss with their patients).

I am not surprised that a doctor would just prescribe a pill. I would be willing to be that the vast majority of the patients the doctor sees (or the PA sees) don't WANT to talk about eating healthy and exercising - they just want the pill they saw advertised on TV so that they don't have to change their lifestyles.

It's sad that we've become this instant gratification society where popping a few pills to "fix" things is the norm.

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I think it is very important to find a doctor that matches closely with your personal treatment philosophy.

My FIL's treatment philosophy is "attack it with drugs now, so it doesn't get worse later". If he doesn't feel like his medical problems, whatever they are, are being addressed aggressively, he feels like he is receiving poor care. He definitely is of the "they make a pill for that! I should take it!" group. Part of this may be some semi-serious medical conditions he has (really bad asthma and some early childhood lung damage mean that for him, a cold CAN be serious and usually does warrant treatment to prevent secondary bacterial infections).

I'm pretty much his polar opposite - conservative treatment, pills only when they are really necessary, address the majority of problems with diet/exercise. I have chronic anxiety issues and some cyclical depression, and it is always amazing to me just how many docs freak out at the idea that I'm not going to take pills to address it. I'd much rather take the "wait and see" approach, and tend to feel pressured when doctors try to push medications and treatments on me that I don't feel I need.

I'm not saying either philosophy is correct - I probably tend toward undertreating (heck, an antidepressant MIGHT really help me. I'm not going to take one, so it's irrelevant, but it could be considered undertreatment), and my FIL probably tends toward overtreatment. The important part is that each of us have found a doctor that matches our care philosophy, which is really important for patient satisfaction.

So if your doctor isn't a match, or you're just generally not happy, try to find someone else. When you find a good fit, it will totally be worth it!

I fully agree that meds shouldn't generally be the first resort. However, I think it's easy for someone who *is* willing to try non-med approaches to not realize that they are not the majority. There is a lot of pressure from patients who just want a pill. They don't want to have to change themselves. I most definitely don't think doctors should cave in, but I don't think it helps to not see the reality they face. Fortunately, I think society as a whole is becoming better and better at understanding how much lifestyle has to do with things, and that pills are not magic and "safe." But slowly .

Also, although some physicians may still have some conflicts of interest involving meds, most physicians are not personally making money off the meds they prescribe. And most are not changing their prescribing habits over free pens or lunch.

I'm thankful that doctors and health care personnel exist. They do a civic duty. And I'd like to think that most of them do care for their patients and try to give them the best care they can.

I go to my doctor for regular check-ups. That being said, I realize that my health is in my hands, and I remember the exact moment I realized this.

I was at the eye-doctor's, getting a check up and coming in for new lenses. I talked to him about contacts, and mentioned the ones that you can wear without taking them out each day. He said "I don't recommend them, they aren't the healthiest thing for your eyes, but I'll proscribe whatever you want."

That didn't make any sense to me, why proscribe me something that's not the best thing for me?... but it hit me. I make the choice. I can choose to take pills a doctor proscribes, or ask for alternatives. Even if a doctor hands me pills... I can still not take them.

Ever since that eye appointment my idea of what a doctor does has changed in my mind. A doctor is there to help me make an informed decision about what to do about my health. However, they are not the be-all end-all. Do I want one in the emergency room making decisions when I cannot? Yes! 1,000 times Yes! Do I want them around so that I can have their medical opinion? Yes, please! Do I want to just get a pill to fix me? No. But that part is up to me to ask about it and be informed.

I've had two prescriptions given to me in the past 6 months that I've opted not to take. It is all about personal choice and ultimately, I decide what treatments to take.

Gee. And here I am with a doctor's appointment this afternoon to determine just what my cholesterol tests mean. I have followed a low fat diet for 13 years. My weight has gone up and down in that time, but I still follow the low fat diet for the most part (sure we all fall off once in a while, we're only human). In all my years, I've never had a bad lab test--until this year. So my doctor decided to do the Berkley Heart Lab test which has more than the usual tests for cholesterol and lots of other tests that really go deep into the cholesterol mystery. Anyway, I've been going crazy trying to figure out why my (and now my DH's) cholesterol is up and worrying about what my doctor will suggest to me about it.

Actually a lot of current studies show more of a link with bad carbs to high cholesterol. Healthy fats like olive oil tend to produce better lipid results, more of a mediterranean diet, not a low fat one. Let us know what your doctor says.