I apologize if I came across overly negative - my ire isn't aimed at anyone who's been raked over the coals by the medical industry or the everyday people employed there who are doing their best to work within its limited framework. It's the ones at the top of the "pyramid scheme" I think are particularly heinous, since they know more about how so many of these treatments either don't really help or actually make things worse.
It is refreshing to meet people working within that system who know how to get things done while also recognizing the system is broken. I've dealt with a few physicians thoughout the years who have known how to navigate the healthcare miasma to help people without getting them bogged down in the mire. Kind of like the "use the world but not to the full" thing.
As far as the "how to get help in the hospital" thing goes: always having an advocate with you if you can help it; not letting them do every test or every med or every procedure just because they try to sell you on it; recognizing any research you do on the surface online is framed by the same people who are selling a treatment ("follow the money") whether that treatment is pills or supplements or some other therapy; understanding the products/procedures promoted are ones that have higher profits for the hospital and will be covered by your insurance if you have some; knowing all the medical centers have C-Diff, bed bugs, and other not cool stuff so get out of there as soon as you can; remembering that people are individuals and they vary so one dr/nurse/tech might be honest and the next a liar.
Hospitals are filthy places. You might see someone cleaning one area that is visible, but then around the corner it hasn't been washed for years. The doctor wears scrubs into the surgery, but you didn't see him wearing those same scrubs in the public bathroom a minute ago where he was standing at the same urinal used by the transient who came in to shoot up drugs a just prior. Your nurses used sanitizer when they came in the room, but the shot they gave you fell on the floor in the other room before they stuck it in your arm. The food delivered to your room was the proper temperature to kill bacteria when they first cooked it, but it's been sitting on that tray for hours by the time you ate it and has been exposed to every wing of the hospital on its way up to you.
And I won't even get started on the mishaps as regards wrong treatments for the wrong patients or what some unscrupulous healthcare workers do to patients while they are drugged up...
[shivers]
@DisgruntledFool, I am glad you've known some nice practitioners. Sometimes what helps us most about the "practice" is the human kindness and compassion shown when we are undergoing a health issue. A little love goes a long way.🙂🫶
As regards "Brother Hood" lol I didn't know him personally, he was before my time. The snootiest CO I've ever known was Ian Flynn. During COVID when they had an assembly via audio link, I remember him announcing at the beginning: "I'll be giving the first talk...and then so-and-so will give the talk...and then I'll be giving the talk...and then...and then I'll be giving that talk...and then I'm giving that one too." He seriously talked about how he was giving this and this and this talk for like ten minutes! It was so funny! (I don't think he meant it to be, but it sounded like the assembly should have been renamed "The Ian Flynn Show") it reminded me of this guy😆...
