RES: RES: doctor disease

Alexandre Fenelon afenelon at zaz.com.br
Fri May 11 16:48:42 PDT 2001


-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Marta Russell Enviada em: sexta-feira, 11 de maio de 2001 21:00 Para: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Assunto: Re: RES: doctor disease

Points well taken. I don't deny any of that what you list here does contribute largely to the problem in many cases and in many areas of the world. However, in the case of my friend's blood clot case these doctors are well fed, well paid, not overworked in a community care clinic (though they may be undertrained) physicians. In Bob's case it was not some overworked doc in a poor neighborhood (who might actually have done a better job when you think about it) it was several docs in Malibu and Santa Monica, CA with plush offices in the more affluent communities. The fact that a leg turns blue and swells to boot is a pretty clear sign that blood flow is being cut off, yet Bob had to become disabled to the point of using a crutches and a wheelchair before he got to a physician that did the correct test and that physician just looked at the leg and knew. Bob could have lost his leg not to mention all the pain he went through!!! So one doc out of four with medical degrees (probably from well known universities given the socio economic neighborhoods in which they live and practice medicine) interpreted the picture correctly. In the US, we have always had capitalist medicine and a two or three tiered system where care is available to those with the best insurance and scarcer for those without - where docs, insurance corps and other institutions all can profit from health care - the prices keep going up and the quality of care seems to be getting poorer. I suspect that the RAnd study was conducted because more of the bourgeoisie are being affected by the lack of quality care.

best, Marta

-Well, I don´t deny there is negligence and malpractice among doctors. And I also agree with you that the situation we face in Third world countries are different from yours. In the case you mentioned, I would point to item 3 from my post. Maybe over specialization would be also a problem here. Despite this, the lack of medical knowledge in this case is remarkable. Do you have the reference from RAnd study? Probably the full text is acessible to me in the library of our medical scholl.

Alexandre



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