Thursday, February 9, 2012

Doctor’s lie to us sometimes according to study

                         Good Day Humboldt County!

Everybody lies — even doctors.

I’ve been saying this for years. Not only do they lie as a matter of convenience, but they often can’t agree on things like medication, or if vitamins are necessary to promote good health. For example: I have a civilian doctor and a VA doctor who are on different ends of the spectrum when it comes to taking Vitamin D. One says you can’t take enough and the other says Vitamin D doesn’t do anything good at all.

Take this new study that found 11 percent of doctors say that they have told a patient or a child's guardian something that was not true in the past year, and about 20 percent say they have not fully disclosed a mistake to a patient because they were afraid of being sued. The results also show 34 percent of doctors surveyed did not "completely agree" that physicians should disclose all significant medical errors to affected patients. Instead, these doctors said they only somewhat agreed, or disagreed.

Between lies and individual opinions on what is good and bad for us, the hunt for a “good” doctor looks like a lost cause. The fact that they lie to us at times comes as no shock to me. Patients should be aware that doctors don’t always have their best interests in mind. And, when they do screw up, they often hide the fact.

Time to walk on down the road… 

 

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