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Comment by kelseyfrog | Hacker News Reader

The article describes this:

Patients seeking solutions often experience frustration and desperation. They visit neurologists, anesthesiologists, pain-management specialists, alternative healers, and online chat groups, trying to find explanations and relief.

Given the base-rate, surely some doctors must also experience these maladies themselves. How do they resolve the apparent contradiction of presumably their own frustration and desperation as a patient and while also being in some way the creator of it as a doctor?

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This is not uncommon. There's lots of issues where there are no easy answer and even if you know most answers, the solutions are "there is ~20% chance this will help, if not there is ~15% chance this will help, ... etc.". And that's assuming you can identify the real problem not masking as something else. Dealing with the uncertainty is part of the job. Ideally you'd want the doctor to explain it to the patients too. But I wouldn't say they create the frustration as such. The frustration is that nobody know better answers.

> How do they resolve the apparent contradiction of presumably their own frustration and desperation as a patient and while also being in some way the creator of it as a doctor?

Those are typically different people, so there is no contradiction.

I understand they are different people. But, you would agree sometimes doctors have headaches where they are then are a patient treated by another doctor, right?

How would that person understand the contradiction of sometimes being in a role where they dismiss patients, but also sometimes being in the role of the patient where they are being dismissed?

I've thought about this problem a lot too.

I've wondered if it comes down to a game theory result where if you have x amount of time to distribute amongst y problems, there's more net social utility in applying a simple solution to everyone, and accepting that difficult problems will be missed. Versus spending detailed time on each problem, and as a result solving fewer problems but better.

Of course, when money comes into play, it seems as though you're going to be financially required to rush everyone through the door in 15 minutes, or else your business will lose to someone who adopts this strategy. Leaving anyone with a complex problem dead.

I spend a lot of time on migraine and pain subreddits and there is an air of deference to the medical authority to know what to do. But if your case is complex, you just can't fit into the simple flow chart, and need to advocate and problem solve for yourself. Which leads people into the path of pseudoscience and exploitation.

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