(Two people mentioned this so I figure I’ll just reply here.)
Re: doctors perspective. I see how it might be rational from his perspective. My first thought is, “why not just give me the info and let me decide how much money I’m willing to invest in my health?”. I could see how that might not be such a good idea though. From a macro perspective, perhaps those sorts of transaction costs might not be worth the benefits of added information → increased efficiency? Plus it’d be getting closer to admitting to how much they value a life, which seems like it’d be bad from an image perspective
I guess what I’m left with is saying that I find it extremely frustrating, I’m disappointed in myself for not thinking harder about this, and I’m really really glad you guys emphasized this so I could do a better job of thinking about what the interests are of parties I interact with (specifically doctors, and also people more generally). I feel like it makes sense for me to be clear that I would like information to be shared with me and that I’m willing to spend a lot of money on my health. And perhaps that it’s worth exercising some influence on my doctors so they care more about me. Thoughts?
The doctor you are with has a financial interest to treat you. When he advises you against doing something about the cyst he’s acting against his own financial interests.
Overtreatment isn’t good if you value life very much. Every medical interventions comes with risks. We don’t fully understand the human body, so we don’t know all the risks.
From the perspective of the doctor the question likely isn’t: “How much money is the patient willing to invest in health” but “How much is the patient willing to invest for the cosmetic issue of getting rid of an ugly cyst”.
If I remember right the best predictor for a doctor getting sued is whether patients perceive the doctor to be friendly.
Advising against a unnecessary practice might be malpractice but informing a patient about the option to do so, especially when there are cosmetic reasons for it, shouldn’t be a big issue.
Even good doctors can get sued. But it speaks to more about why people sue; (doctors did a bad human-interaction job rather than they did a negligent job)
I do wonder about the nature of doctoring. Do you happen to get 3% (arbitrary number) wrong; and if you are also bad at people-skills, this bites you. whereas if you get 3% wrong and you are good at people skills you avoid being sued 99% of those 3% of cases.
(Two people mentioned this so I figure I’ll just reply here.)
Re: doctors perspective. I see how it might be rational from his perspective. My first thought is, “why not just give me the info and let me decide how much money I’m willing to invest in my health?”. I could see how that might not be such a good idea though. From a macro perspective, perhaps those sorts of transaction costs might not be worth the benefits of added information → increased efficiency? Plus it’d be getting closer to admitting to how much they value a life, which seems like it’d be bad from an image perspective
I guess what I’m left with is saying that I find it extremely frustrating, I’m disappointed in myself for not thinking harder about this, and I’m really really glad you guys emphasized this so I could do a better job of thinking about what the interests are of parties I interact with (specifically doctors, and also people more generally). I feel like it makes sense for me to be clear that I would like information to be shared with me and that I’m willing to spend a lot of money on my health. And perhaps that it’s worth exercising some influence on my doctors so they care more about me. Thoughts?
The doctor you are with has a financial interest to treat you. When he advises you against doing something about the cyst he’s acting against his own financial interests.
Overtreatment isn’t good if you value life very much. Every medical interventions comes with risks. We don’t fully understand the human body, so we don’t know all the risks.
From the perspective of the doctor the question likely isn’t: “How much money is the patient willing to invest in health” but “How much is the patient willing to invest for the cosmetic issue of getting rid of an ugly cyst”.
If the surgery isn’t necessary, and something goes wrong during it, does the doctor need to worry about getting sued?
If I remember right the best predictor for a doctor getting sued is whether patients perceive the doctor to be friendly.
Advising against a unnecessary practice might be malpractice but informing a patient about the option to do so, especially when there are cosmetic reasons for it, shouldn’t be a big issue.
Even good doctors can get sued. But it speaks to more about why people sue; (doctors did a bad human-interaction job rather than they did a negligent job)
I do wonder about the nature of doctoring. Do you happen to get 3% (arbitrary number) wrong; and if you are also bad at people-skills, this bites you. whereas if you get 3% wrong and you are good at people skills you avoid being sued 99% of those 3% of cases.