Where have all the doctors gone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because people kept showing up to appointments with stacks of self identified pub med articles demanding they be evaluated.

Some of us are desperate for help and most doctors do the bare minimum and we suffer unnecessarily.

I can tell you're one of the patients driving doctors out. So many patients mainly need to see a psychologist, but instead pester their PCPs and specialists.

I hope everyone isn't being dismissed as having anxiety or whatever. That's something that prevailed in the 60s and 70s, particularly for women, and I would hope that we have moved beyond that. Also, people who are sick are scared, so doctors see that, but that doesn't mean they need a psychologist.
Having said that, there is a lot of post Covid pandemic mental healtg issues, and I would say that doctors and patients alike are dealing with that.

[Anonymous]

The ones I know still work on medicine but not seeing patients, reduced time, or retired.

Medicine is a difficult job and the perks of the past have been stripped away. Covid accelerated a trend that was already occurring.

[Anonymous]

I feel like many patients (and their families) come in angry anymore.

[Anonymous]

A lot of doctors 50+ retired or stopped accepting new patients.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that pandemic burn out drove many doctors to quit and that’s why it’s so hard to get an appointment these days. But where did they go? Was it just older docs who retired early and women who became SAHMs? Or other jobs like working for insurance companies?

My PCP became a lifestyle coach.

[Anonymous]

They committed Seppuku after being asked for a plastics consult for a broken nail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because people kept showing up to appointments with stacks of self identified pub med articles demanding they be evaluated.

Some of us are desperate for help and most doctors do the bare minimum and we suffer unnecessarily.

I can tell you're one of the patients driving doctors out. So many patients mainly need to see a psychologist, but instead pester their PCPs and specialists.

I hope everyone isn't being dismissed as having anxiety or whatever. That's something that prevailed in the 60s and 70s, particularly for women, and I would hope that we have moved beyond that. Also, people who are sick are scared, so doctors see that, but that doesn't mean they need a psychologist.
Having said that, there is a lot of post Covid pandemic mental healtg issues, and I would say that doctors and patients alike are dealing with that.

COVID was not nor is the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut back to 24hr a week now that med school loans are paid off. Enjoying having a life again. I’d work 40 hours if patients weren’t so miserable and management didn’t try to cram my schedule way past full.

What makes the patients miserable? I mean, specifics in terms of behavior thet shouldn't be doing.

Just angry about wait times in the office (that I can’t control), having a lot of things that they “insist “ on being tested for despite it not being relevant for their symptoms - and some tests will yield a lot of false positives if you test everyone for them. It sounds wrong- like, “if I test positive, and the test is 99% accurate, then it’s a real positive!” but google the Bayes Theorum and you’ll see that’s actually wrong. But patients INSIST on testing for things. And it muddies the waters and makes my job harder and doesn’t make their symptoms go away because now they’re convinced they have, for example, chronic Lyme disease and they won’t consider that their fatigue is actually probably from sleep apnea or depression. Anyways I’m ranting.

None of that sounds miserable to me. It sounds human. It sounds like humans who are struggling and are asking doctors to help them feel better.

Yes, people are trying to self advocate because care has become so abbreviated and disjointed

But without any nuanced understanding of the tests they insist on! Did you know that if chances are really low that you have a disorder (and you don’t meet criteria for testing for it), but you test for it anyways , and get a positive result, if that test is 99% accurate, it means that there is only a 1 in 10 chance your positive result is real? #mathdoesntlie

This article detailing how often doctors miss life threatening pulmonary embolisms is terrifying:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772632022000113

And what do you think the morbidity and mortality would be if every patient who might, on a very off chance, have a PE is given a pulmonary angiogram which is the gold standard for diagnosis?

Or even “just” a chest CT?

I’m not talking about cost, even. Or availability of practitioners and machines to run all these tests on every single patient with some shortness of breath. I’m talking about harm to patients that results from doing the test.

What harm? Ignoring the problems is the true harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because people kept showing up to appointments with stacks of self identified pub med articles demanding they be evaluated.

Some of us are desperate for help and most doctors do the bare minimum and we suffer unnecessarily.

I can tell you're one of the patients driving doctors out. So many patients mainly need to see a psychologist, but instead pester their PCPs and specialists.

If you are a doctor YOU need to leave the profession and you are harming people who do have health issues and it's not mental health.

Perhaps you should just skip doctors and treat yourself.

I've tried as I cannot get quality health care. Sadly it hasn't worked.

Don't give up so easily. It sounds like you shouldn't see doctors anymore.

How do you get care when your primary care refuses to help and you need referrals and even when you get them you see residents who know nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because people kept showing up to appointments with stacks of self identified pub med articles demanding they be evaluated.

Some of us are desperate for help and most doctors do the bare minimum and we suffer unnecessarily.

I can tell you're one of the patients driving doctors out. So many patients mainly need to see a psychologist, but instead pester their PCPs and specialists.

If you are a doctor YOU need to leave the profession and you are harming people who do have health issues and it's not mental health.

Perhaps you should just skip doctors and treat yourself.

I've tried as I cannot get quality health care. Sadly it hasn't worked.

Don't give up so easily. It sounds like you shouldn't see doctors anymore.

How do you get care when your primary care refuses to help and you need referrals and even when you get them you see residents who know nothing.

Clearly you know better than they do so you should treat yourself.

[Anonymous]

My PCP is retiring early to become a yoga instructor and health coach, and moving far away from DMV area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because people kept showing up to appointments with stacks of self identified pub med articles demanding they be evaluated.

Some of us are desperate for help and most doctors do the bare minimum and we suffer unnecessarily.

I can tell you're one of the patients driving doctors out. So many patients mainly need to see a psychologist, but instead pester their PCPs and specialists.

If you are a doctor YOU need to leave the profession and you are harming people who do have health issues and it's not mental health.

Perhaps you should just skip doctors and treat yourself.

I've tried as I cannot get quality health care. Sadly it hasn't worked.

Don't give up so easily. It sounds like you shouldn't see doctors anymore.

How do you get care when your primary care refuses to help and you need referrals and even when you get them you see residents who know nothing.

Clearly you know better than they do so you should treat yourself.

If I could, I would have, which is why I need good experienced doctors. The doctors, that I schedule appointments with hide in their office never to be seen. You get to see a tech or nurse and a resident (who spends 5 minutes with you and then regurgitates things to the doctor which aren't the real concern and come back saying you are fine or a basic medication without testing). You really think that is quality medicine?

[Anonymous]

Quality healthcare still exists but you have to know how to navigate the healthcare system.

Former physician here who went to top schools and training programs. I no longer see patients but rather do different work that is more interesting to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut back to 24hr a week now that med school loans are paid off. Enjoying having a life again. I’d work 40 hours if patients weren’t so miserable and management didn’t try to cram my schedule way past full.

What makes the patients miserable? I mean, specifics in terms of behavior thet shouldn't be doing.

Just angry about wait times in the office (that I can’t control), having a lot of things that they “insist “ on being tested for despite it not being relevant for their symptoms - and some tests will yield a lot of false positives if you test everyone for them. It sounds wrong- like, “if I test positive, and the test is 99% accurate, then it’s a real positive!” but google the Bayes Theorum and you’ll see that’s actually wrong. But patients INSIST on testing for things. And it muddies the waters and makes my job harder and doesn’t make their symptoms go away because now they’re convinced they have, for example, chronic Lyme disease and they won’t consider that their fatigue is actually probably from sleep apnea or depression. Anyways I’m ranting.

None of that sounds miserable to me. It sounds human. It sounds like humans who are struggling and are asking doctors to help them feel better.

Yes, people are trying to self advocate because care has become so abbreviated and disjointed

But without any nuanced understanding of the tests they insist on! Did you know that if chances are really low that you have a disorder (and you don’t meet criteria for testing for it), but you test for it anyways , and get a positive result, if that test is 99% accurate, it means that there is only a 1 in 10 chance your positive result is real? #mathdoesntlie

This article detailing how often doctors miss life threatening pulmonary embolisms is terrifying:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772632022000113

And what do you think the morbidity and mortality would be if every patient who might, on a very off chance, have a PE is given a pulmonary angiogram which is the gold standard for diagnosis?

Or even “just” a chest CT?

I’m not talking about cost, even. Or availability of practitioners and machines to run all these tests on every single patient with some shortness of breath. I’m talking about harm to patients that results from doing the test.

What harm? Ignoring the problems is the true harm.

Ok,
I’ll play. A pulmonary angiogram is an invasive procedure which can lead to disability or death.
A chest CT has so much radiation that the risk of it CAUSING cancer has to be weighed against any possible benefit of using it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because people kept showing up to appointments with stacks of self identified pub med articles demanding they be evaluated.

Some of us are desperate for help and most doctors do the bare minimum and we suffer unnecessarily.

I can tell you're one of the patients driving doctors out. So many patients mainly need to see a psychologist, but instead pester their PCPs and specialists.

If you are a doctor YOU need to leave the profession and you are harming people who do have health issues and it's not mental health.

Perhaps you should just skip doctors and treat yourself.

I've tried as I cannot get quality health care. Sadly it hasn't worked.

Don't give up so easily. It sounds like you shouldn't see doctors anymore.

How do you get care when your primary care refuses to help and you need referrals and even when you get them you see residents who know nothing.

Clearly you know better than they do so you should treat yourself.

If I could, I would have, which is why I need good experienced doctors. The doctors, that I schedule appointments with hide in their office never to be seen. You get to see a tech or nurse and a resident (who spends 5 minutes with you and then regurgitates things to the doctor which aren't the real concern and come back saying you are fine or a basic medication without testing). You really think that is quality medicine?

Why are you still going to large academic institutions then? Go to a private practice.