my poll

[laid up doc]

It has been suggested that many here do not trust US MD's and may not appreciate my input, since I am one too (though not in spine and I'm not a surgeon!!). Please vote as to whether you would like for me to stay on as a member. I am clearly on the "other side" and can happily go off into the sunset, but I am happy to be of assistance if that's what the people want.

i'm also just a pain patient just like you all... but with a different perspective.

I can't make a poll, just post yes or no.

[JEVE19]

OMG! This is childish!
I got crucified for saying that I didn't have a good experience with Clavel.
You think people are gonna come one here and say yes, you should leave?

Of course no one wants you to leave, I don't even want you to leave.
I just want you to learn to that your opinion isn't the only opinion that counts.
You don't always have to have the last word.
Being an MD doesn't automatically make you smarter than the rest of us.
When someone becomes an MD, or a lawyer, or whatever, does that mean that they are automatically smarter than their parents or grandparents when they are maybe in there 20's or early 30's? That's why they say wisdom comes with age.

Please be a team player and not always the team leader.
All advice you give is appreciated and remember that you have an opinion, but so do others.

[jss]

Doc, please stay. You have a level of knowledge that in most areas exceeds the combined knowledge on this board and you give extremely valuable input that the rest of us can't; possibly to the point of life saving input as in your most recent impartation to srajan.

Vicki, please stay. You have a tragically long experience with spine problems and have revealed two issues in your medical history, here and in your blog, that I've not seen previously mentioned by other spine patients. With the uniqueness of your experience you will certainly be able to help someone else that comes here with either of those two afflictions.

As this spine forum is not spine surgery, we are afforded the convenience of a mulligan. Perhaps we can all swallow really really hard, put this unpleasant business behind us and go back to the reason that we've all stuck around after our successful ADR surgeries; helping others.

Jeff

[annapurna]

Here, you're not a doctor first, you're a spine patient first and you should be welcome to remain. Rich could step in here but I don't remember any time in which you stepped over the line with the community rules. If other members can't accept that there is good and bad in every profession and choose to lump you in with a few bad doctors or surgeons, that's their loss. The rest of the community will enjoy the help you offer.

We tend to forget here that we see lots of discussion on the few bad doctors and only slightly less on the few miracle workers. If you read the forums, it's easy to think that every doctor is either a complete idiot or sadist or touched by God and capable of working miracles. I've said before that the problem, in my mind, is that US doctors work for insurance companies, not the patients.

To expand that:if a doctor has the amount of money they can get per patient fixed by insurance companies to a regional average, it becomes very difficult to provide more than a regional average standard of care. Furthermore, if the insurance company cooks up a rate of, say 15 minutes per patient, for the doctor, that doc is now forced to resolve every problem that comes through the door in about 12 minutes to give himself time to dictate for his records, clean up and move on to the next person. The most principled and dedicated of doctors could only last so long in that kind of environments before giving up and becoming an automaton.

The problem is the system is breeding uncaring doctors, not that the doctors themselves are uncaring. Both Laura and I have advanced degrees; we know the kind of dedication that it takes to go beyond a Bachelor's degree and recognize that most doctors are doctors because they have a passion for helping people. It would be nice if the system permitted them to retain that.