Saturday, January 15, 2011

Incomprehensible

There are many things that I see that I don't understand.
How is my wife's best friend treated for seven months for a gall bladder problem when in reality she had Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer?
How is another of Susan's friends diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer when she has had an annual mammogram because there is a familiar risk in her family?
How could our beloved Leslie have a lesion on her thigh that was shown to her physician and ignored for a year turn out to be a Melanoma? How could Leslie have a lump in her breast diagnosed for a year as a benign cyst and then have breast cancer?
How could a patient with lesions that are,according to the doctors, 'atypical' then be diagnosed with cancer not have a chest x-ray or a bone scan 1 year after being cured from breast cancer?

HOW?

I have a belief (which may mean that I am not correct) that physicians have been 'demoted' to the top of the Blue Collar working class and they are angry. They have had their pay reduced by insurance companies to the point where they are merely insurance clerks checking boxes to send patients for tests.

This must stop before other patients are misdiagnosed or mistreated.

And this is why I do not participate with any insurance company. I care more for you, my patient, than your insurance company does. I will always do what is in YOUR best interest regardless whether or not you have insurance.

We have to pay physicians more and let them be doctors again.