Mike is a typical man and is as concerned with his heath as anyone. His life long experience with doctors is one horror show story after another.
The Massachusetts Medical Society now has a “Men's Health Committee” which is pushing the usual misnadrist crap about how men are to blame for the many longstanding problems that men have with the medical industrial complex. They have gotten an article published in the CNN Health Minute called
Advice for men: Don't wait to see a doctor. Bob has some advice for the arrogant assholes of the medical industrial complex, Don't Wait to Provide Adequate Services for Men.Men's health has been sorely neglected for all of the 20th century, and the 21st century has so far seen no improvement. A century ago the life expectancy of men was the same as women. In the 20th century, research funding has poured into diseases of women while funding for men's health has lagged behind. Men now die from all diseases at higher rates than females. The life expectancy of men is about 10% shorter than females, on average, in countries with modern “health care.” The response from the medical industrial complex has generally been a focus on furthering health care for females while continuing to neglect and abuse men. It is well that the Massachusetts Medical Society now has a Men's Health Committee, but it's a very small drop in a very large bucket, and doesn't appear to have actually done anything but blame men for their own massive failures.
Mike can tell you of the time he went to see a doctor because he had a sinus infection. He had to wait 4 days to see get on the doctor's appointment schedule. Mike took aspirin and over-the-counter decongestants during the days of waiting. By the time Mike found himself waiting in the doc's entry process his sinus infection was beginning to go away by itself. After an hour of leafing through year old magazines Mike was ushered into an inner room where he was told to sit in a chair that had a menacing looking headrest. The doctor came in and, without consultation or Mike's permission, started sticking probes up Mike's nose.
Like many patients Mike assumed the doctor knew his business and after waiting 4 days to see the doc, was hesitant to leap up and run out. That would have been the wise choice. Having gotten his sinuses reamed out, Mike was told to take some aspirin and come back in 3 days. It hurt to breath, it hurt with every breath, his upper nose was on fire. He could not sleep. The remnants of the original sinus infection was the least of his problems. In three days Mike's sinuses were finally healing up. He could breath without severe pain once more.
Being young and inexperienced with doctors and believing that he should follow medical advice Mike reported back to the doctor on the 3rd day. This time when the doctor broke out his tools to ream out Mike's sinuses, Mike got right up and left. The doctor and his nurse were left standing there around an empty chair. Mike learned another lesson about doctors.
Some years lager Mike was having a flareup of his gout. The AMA monopoly maintains strict control of medications by government sanctioned monopoly. In order to purchase medication for gout you have to have the permission of a government protected monopoly doctor, who makes you kowtow and pay for his permission.
It took Mike several days to get an appointment to see the doctor, and all the while his gout made walking very painful. Mike gets classic gout in his big toe. It swells up, gets hot, and hurts to walk. It can be treated easily with ant-inflammatory medications that work especially well if taken immediately when the flare up begins. If treated immediately the flareup usually goes away in two days. By the 3rd or 4th day, when the doctor condescended to be paid for permission to purchase medication, it was already going to be a long and painful three weeks.
Mike's company had changed Insurance providers since his last gout flareup so he was seeing a different doctor than last time. When the doctor finally disdained to visit the little room with the examination table where Mike had been forced to wait for an hour, Mike explained that he had these flareups off and on for years. All he needed, he said, was some gout mediation. No, said the doctor, not listening to Mike. We have to be sure what it is. We will need a lab test. The doctor went out and twenty minutes later someone else in a white coat came in bearing a large looking needle apparatus. We have to take a sample to test, he said, and stuck the needle into Mike's inflamed joint. Having a large needle stuck into an inflamed gout swollen joint is EXTREMELY painful. Mike didn't need that at all.
Another half hour later the doc came back and said that the test had confirmed gout. Mike told them that when he arrived, but the doc wouldn't listen. The doc finally condescended to allow Mike to purchase some medications, and even an extra supply so he could take some immediately next year if it flares up again. Mike was not pleased with the crappy monopoly grade services provided by the medical industrial complex. They had turned a two day inconvenience into a painful and debilitating 4 week ordeal while inflicting extreme pain. Some years later when the pharmacy refused to allow Mike to purchase any more gout medications without another new permission sheet from the Docs, Mike learned how to order it on-line from Mexico where they don't have government controlled monopolizes to bribe or die.
Stories like those of Mike can be heard from every man Bob has ever talked to. The medical industrial complex eschews the business of men, treats us like cattle, refuses to listen to us or our needs, won't provide services in a timely manner, and organizes their office process to be psychologically offensive to men while catering to females. And of course they still sexually mutilate more than a million little boys in the United States every year, a heinous barbaric crime that outnumbers all other violent crimes against children and all other violent sex crimes combined.
It's no different in any town or city you go to. The AMA, and the medical industrial complex caters to females and generally ignores the needs and health of men. The process of visiting a doctor is designed to be suitable for females, but is psychologically unacceptable to most men, according to various studies and the experience of men. Instead of revising their process to be suitable for men, the doctors blame the men.
In every city the hospitals advertise special departments for women. There are Women's Health Centers. But in several decades I have never seen or heard of a Men's Health Center at any hospital in any city. Maybe a men's health center exists somewhere, but there are women's health centers in every city. What message does that convey to men? Does it say “welcome men” or “we care about men”?
Now Ms. Judy Fortin, CNN Medical Correspondent, writes this misandrist hate piece blaming men for the ongoing and pervasive failures of the medical industrial monopoly to provide adequate services for men. She says that females are responsible while men are irresponsible and bad for avoiding the female centric medical monopoly. The misandrist bitch quotes, Dr. David Dodson, who is a self proclaimed expert on men's health at the Marino Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Dr. Dodson recommends that healthy men under 50 get a regular checkup every 18 months. After 50, he suggests, men should see their doctors annually.
If you read
the web site of the Marino Center, you find their list of services.
Services
Acupuncture
Allergy testing and treatment
Chelation therapy
Chiropractic
Environmental medicine
External Counterpulsation
Flu Clinics
IV Therapy
Mental health
Massage
Nutrition
Neurology
Physical medicine
Physical therapy
Primary care
Women's health
Missing from their list are services for Men's Health. Yet CNN Bigot Ms. Fortin, and Dr. Dodson blame men while their own organization's web site proves that
Men's Health services are not provided.
I have some advice for Dr. Dodson. Blaming men for your lack of services and sexist bigotry is counterproductive. Start taking care of boys and men. Fix your fucking misandrist monopoly.
Doctor, heal thyself!Labels: AMA, Health Care, medicine, resistant staph