How much medical uncertainty can you tolerate? Most patients have not given much thought to this consequential issue, but it hovers over them in their doctors’ offices. This is also an issue for medical professionals. Indeed, how both sides in the doctor-patient relationship navigate through this will be instrumental in choosing the pathway forward. Medicine is not mathematics. It’s a murky discipline with incomplete data and moving targets. Many of your symptoms – fatigue, abdominal pain, nausea, weakness, sleep disturbances – often cannot be reliably explained. How much testing in such cases is reasonable? I offer no response as this issue needs to be negotiated between the patient and the physician. Since patients and doctors have different philosophies and experiences, there will be several correct and reasonable responses. This is why a second opinion may yield different advice but not necessarily better advice. An 80-year-old patient who has endured much medical t
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.