So What Exactly Do Doctors Do All Day?

Recently, I wrote an anonymized case of a friend's hospital visit for pain. The pain was in my friend's neck. The hospital did heart tests, and deprived a diabetic of food for 24 hours. Then the hospital told my friend to consult primary doctor.

Friend goes to primary doctor. Primary doctor is late for scheduled appointment and spends less than 2 minutes with friend. Primary doctor thinks it could be muscle (this never occurred to hospital obsessed with heart) and says he'll prescribe a muscle relaxer. This was Monday. It is now Wednesday, and friend still does not have muscle relaxer. Let me explain:

• Doctor calls in muscle relaxer to pharmacy.
• Doctor does not include quantity.
• Doctor doesn't answer phone.
• Pharmacy can't fill prescription without quantity.
• Almost 48 hours later, friend still has neck pain and no muscle relaxer.
• Doctor finally calls in prescription with quantity.
• Pharmacy has to order because it's not in stock.

I used to think doctors should be protected from "frivolous malpractice lawsuits". But most doctors are so inept and lazy, I'm starting to come over to the side of the malpractice lawsuits. I can count the number of doctors I've dealt with who were halfway competent on one hand. Most of them probably shouldn't be doctors in the first place.

I used to have a list of professions in which I automatically assumed the person was lazy and worthless unless proven otherwise. One was Information Assurance (IA)/Cyber Security. Another was HR. I forget what the third was. I'm putting Doctor in spot 3. Pharmacist is going in 4. Why does it take an hour to count 30 pills and put them in a bottle? That's 2 minutes per pill. It still takes an hour for 10. That's 6 minutes per pill. Hospital Administrator and Health Insurance worker are going on the list too. You're all useless unless you prove otherwise.

The biggest thing that sucks in western medicine is, you may be the PATIENT, but you are not the CUSTOMER. Your health insurance is the customer. And you're not customer to your health insurance either, the government is. When it comes to the health industry, we're just pawns in a really messed up game.