The following conclusions come from a book on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) called Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine, who treats PTSD for a living. I have a copy of this book, which I hereby offer to loan to Richard Kennaway if I do not have to pay to get it to him and to get it back from him.
Surgical procedures are in the opinion of Peter Levine a huge cause of PTSD.
According to Levine, PTSD is caused by subtle damage to the brain stem. Since in contrast episodic memory seems to have very little to do with the brain stem, the fact that one has no episodic memories of a surgical procedure does not mean that one was not traumatized by the procedure.
Since it is impossible in our society for doctors and nurses and such to ignore the fact that someone has died, you can somewhat sometimes rely on them not to kill you unnecessarily, but for anything as subtle as PTSD with as much false information floating about as there is about PTSD, you can pretty much count on it that whenever they cause a case of PTSD, they will remain serenely unaware of that fact, and consequently they will not take even the simplest and most straightforward measure to avoid traumatizing a patient. This sentiment (that medical professionals regularly do harms they are unaware of) is not in Levine’s book AFAICR but is pretty common among rationalists who have extensive experience with the health-care system.
Most cases of traumatization caused by surgical procedures probably occur despite the use of general or local anesthesia.
In conclusion, if I had to undergo a surgical procedure, I’d gather more information of the type I have been sharing here, but if that were not possible, I would treat the possibility of being tramatized by a surgical procedure requiring the use of general anesthetic as having a greater expected negative effect on my health, intelligence and creativity than losing a fingernail would have. (It is more likely than not to turn out less bad than losing a fingernail, but the worst possible consequences are significantly worse than the worst possible consequences of losing the fingernail. In other words, I would tend to choose the loss of a fingernail because the uncertainty and consequently the probability of getting a really bad outcome is much less.)
The following conclusions come from a book on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) called Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine, who treats PTSD for a living. I have a copy of this book, which I hereby offer to loan to Richard Kennaway if I do not have to pay to get it to him and to get it back from him.
Surgical procedures are in the opinion of Peter Levine a huge cause of PTSD.
According to Levine, PTSD is caused by subtle damage to the brain stem. Since in contrast episodic memory seems to have very little to do with the brain stem, the fact that one has no episodic memories of a surgical procedure does not mean that one was not traumatized by the procedure.
Since it is impossible in our society for doctors and nurses and such to ignore the fact that someone has died, you can somewhat sometimes rely on them not to kill you unnecessarily, but for anything as subtle as PTSD with as much false information floating about as there is about PTSD, you can pretty much count on it that whenever they cause a case of PTSD, they will remain serenely unaware of that fact, and consequently they will not take even the simplest and most straightforward measure to avoid traumatizing a patient. This sentiment (that medical professionals regularly do harms they are unaware of) is not in Levine’s book AFAICR but is pretty common among rationalists who have extensive experience with the health-care system.
Most cases of traumatization caused by surgical procedures probably occur despite the use of general or local anesthesia.
In conclusion, if I had to undergo a surgical procedure, I’d gather more information of the type I have been sharing here, but if that were not possible, I would treat the possibility of being tramatized by a surgical procedure requiring the use of general anesthetic as having a greater expected negative effect on my health, intelligence and creativity than losing a fingernail would have. (It is more likely than not to turn out less bad than losing a fingernail, but the worst possible consequences are significantly worse than the worst possible consequences of losing the fingernail. In other words, I would tend to choose the loss of a fingernail because the uncertainty and consequently the probability of getting a really bad outcome is much less.)
Contact Richard Hollerith.