A Catholic attitude towards medicine?

[vsedriver]

f someone has high cholesterol, is it because of their diet or is it just their genetics?

this is a good example of what happened to me. I do take a low dose cholesterol because family history showed that high cholesterol runs in my family.

I recently had to get a new doctor when my doctor of 25 years retired. I know what works for me. But he wanted to change things around. I gave it 6 months and then went back and said no, I wanted back on my usual regimen. He now works well with me because he knows I don’t call unless it is important. Doctors are also plagued with patients who run to them for every ache and pain.

 

[Thorolfr]

Today, it seems, medicine is more like any other business. Don’t you dare call the doctor’s office after 4 p.m.; if you need help go to the emergency room.

Some doctors nowadays are like that, but not all of them. If I call and leave a message, my doctor always calls back the same day. And if I sent him an email, he responds to that, too, usually the same day.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I recently had to get a new doctor when my doctor of 25 years retired. I know what works for me. But he wanted to change things around. I gave it 6 months and then went back and said no, I wanted back on my usual regimen.

For reasons I have never been able to fathom, every doctor, every medical practice, does something, some little thing, different from anything you’ve ever seen before. One doctor will have you to fast for 14 hours with no coffee (for fasting blood work), another one will have you to fast for 12 hours but coffee is allowed, and so on. Some doctors take your temperature, others don’t (even for a cold or flu!). Some take your blood pressure, others don’t. Never quite figured that out.

I had to change my doctors this year, due to a change in insurance, and the insurance company not having a contract with a major regional medical center. I went to a new doctor and was emphatic that my medications have worked well for me, for several years. He didn’t change anything. He is very “old school” and I was pleased by this. But sometimes it happens.

 

[JanR]

Here is a true story that illustrates, with deadly results, how corrupt some areas of the medical/insurance system can be:

After our mother passed away, our dad began dating one of her best friends. She was a nice lady, and we were happy for them.

This lady had an HMO, and had been seeing her HMO doctor about a constant sore throat and trouble swallowing. He gave her some pills, but they never worked. She kept going back to him, trying to get him to try something else, telling him repeatedly that what he was doing wasn’t helping.

He finally got snarky and copped an attitude. He told her he was tired of listening to her complaints. She begged him to refer her to a specialist, since he couldn’t (wouldn’t even try) to find out what was wrong. He flatly refused, so she was left on her own to deal with it.

When she told our dad about this, he told her to see a specialist at once and he would pay for it.

She did, and the specialist immediately identified her throat cancer, which by then was in the later stages. He hospitalized her at once, and they did surgery, but it was too late. The cancer had spread, and she died.

Had this HMO doctor not been so quick to just blow her off, and had he referred her to a specialist when she had requested it, she might have survived.

I’ve heard lots of horror stories about HMOs not giving an owl’s hoot about the well being of the patient, some so brazen and callous as to actually tell the patient to “Die!”, so they wouldn’t have to deal with them, anymore!

Until some overhauling changes get made to this system, things like that are going to continue to happen, and people are going to needlessly die due to the “We don’t give a d***” attitudes of some of these very evil and corrupt outfits that are only concerned with the “Almighty Dollar Bill”, and nothing else.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Until some overhauling changes get made to this system, things like that are going to continue to happen, and people are going to needlessly die due to the “We don’t give a d***” attitudes of some of these very evil and corrupt outfits that are only concerned with the “Almighty Dollar Bill”, and nothing else.

I favor government single-payer health care, as they have in Canada. I realize that this puts taxpayers in the position of funding abortion and contraception, however remote, but the same likelihood exists even with private insurance, and nobody has to have an abortion, or has to use a contraceptive — those are free will decisions. We might pray that people not make use of this.

And if government-funded health care violates the principle of subsidiary, then many, many countries are guilty, and the Vatican needs to bring this out, and implore them to implement free-market health insurance such as the US has (which, presumably, doesn’t violate the principle of subsidiary).

 

[Convert3]

My wife had ovarian cancer fifteen years ago, and a friend in Canada was also diagnosed with ovarian cancer at approximately the same time. My wife was stage 3 and her Canadian friend was stage two. My wife quickly had surgery, followed by chemo and radiation, because she also had uterine cancer at the same time. He friend had to wait longer a period for her surgery, and the chemo started longer after the surgery. My wife is still alive and her friend isn’t. Government provided health care results in longer waits, with decisions made by bureaucracy and not by doctors. Budget drives the health care. I hope the US never goes to government health care.

 

[Elf01]

Budget drives the health care.

Or what insurance covers. I see very little difference.

 

[maryjk]

When insurance doesn’t cover it, I have the option of paying out of pocket.

And yes, sometimes it has gotten pretty expensive.