I mean the medical kind. I don't want to talk about the relative merits of each country's medical system, but rather what I perceive to be a lack of common ground between medical doctors and people like us that are more hardware inclined.
Anyone ever had to face a wall of incomprehension or patronizing tone from a doctor when explaining your medical problem?
Ever had a problem that somehow seems to take forever to converge to a solution? Despite CT scans and MRI?
Ever present medical journal articles (valid peer-reviewed journals) to a doctor only to be dismissed?
Oh God, tell me about it. I just had a most infuriating example very recently (20180406).
By 'hardware inclined', I think you mean 'technically and analytically inclined, and able to research and make logical inferences and deductions'?
There are several issues with the medical profession:
* Medical practitioners get used to dealing with 'average' people - which means generally ignorant and stupid. So the doctor develops ingrained attitudes that all patients are ignorant and stupid.
* When they encounter a patient that is 'high bandwidth' and has researched their own problem to the point where they possibly know more about it than the GP, they just can't relate.
* Doctors are generally extremely busy. They don't have time to do research, or come to grips with complex case histories.
* They see so many patients, they can't possibly remember case details in much detail for specific patients.
* They are trained to apply fixed rules of observation and reaction. Not to get creative themselves. (This is probably a good thing in general. But fails in special cases that are 'not in the standard handbook.')
* When the medical problem is anything out of the ordinary, that actually needs serious research and logical inference, they just can't do it.
* Some of them are pathetic useless gits. Like in _any_ group of people.
My story involves a really unusual infection picked up from a leech bite on a bushwalk back in Mar 2015. Which still persists today, due to being so bizarre there's nothing in the literature, and no known treatment. Only possible due to a freakish combination of circumstances, that unfortunately for me, happened in this instance. It's very debilitating, and persists despite multiple antibiotics courses due to the most unlikely, ridiculous, little-known effect. But with so far no solution.
I have the entire saga online, at a private URL, for passing to specialists. This thread just begs me to post the link here, but sadly, I think for legal reasons I'd better not. Eventually it will be public, but not yet.
Just in case anyone can suggest anything: Quick summary-
The bacterium is called Aeromonas Hydrophila. It's a motile, iron-loving bug that can switch between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. Widely drug resistant, and likes iron-rich environments. Exports a pore-forming toxin called Aerolysin (look it up.) Can be transmitted by leech bite. Normally does not infect humans unless they have an impaired immune system, or some deep wound. In which case AH (or rather its toxin) causes necrotizing fasciitis, ie it's a flesh-eating bacteria and can be lethal.
I have a genetic condition called haemochromatosis, causing excessively high blood iron levels, with a side effect of impaired immune function. ie I'm an environment this bug likes.
Got infected with it from a leech bite. With no other input it would have rapidly killed me. I had a fever of 38.5 deg within 6 hours of the leech bite. But immediately self-administered standard antibiotics. Knocked it down but not out. Intermittent fevers and stop-start antibiotics (a mistake) for 9 days, then ended up in hospital with temp nearing 39 deg C. More antibiotics.
But... It's motile, and can go anaerobic, ie live in zero-oxygen environments. There is a place in the human body that can be anaerobic, and neither antibiotics or the immune system can reach.... the vitreous humour of the eyes.
Yep, I have a colony of motile bacteria living in the vitreous humour. They can get out in small numbers to the bloodstream, so I keep getting repeat fever flareups and pretty nasty localized infections. So far not so bad as necrotizing, but some have been pretty unpleasant.
But this is so rare, no one has ever heard of it. My GP is finally convinced, but we can't find either an analytical test for presence of the toxin aerolysin, or manage to culture the bug. And so far not one eye specialist has been able to respond usefully to the concept of an anaerobic infection of the vitreous. Which for some reason stays in relatively low numbers. They cause some eye damage, but not much. Best theory for why being, in anaerobic mode they don't 'like' to switch back to oxygen-based metabolism, so swim away from oxygen-diffusion gradients. Ie the away from near the retina. Also for energy efficiency there'd be no point in the bacterium producing a cell-killing toxin in an anaerobic environment, since normally in such environments there are unlikely to be any cells nearby. Luckily for me. There is some glucose in the vitreous though, enough to keep some of the buggers alive.
Now here's the freaky bit.
* Aeromonas bacteria are 1.0 to 3.0 µm in length, and "motile by a polar flagellum."
* Human retinal cone cell diameter varies from 0.5 to 4.0 µm. (Smaller sizes are in the fovea.)
Who here can guess what the result of that is? Go on, guess. See if something is obvious to you, with a bit of basic optics and physics knowledge.
I expect some of you will know the answer. In contrast to pretty much every doctor and eye specialist I've encountered, unable to comprehend and absolutely blocking out the concept, often with insulting condescension.
(With one exception, who had heard of it before.)
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