When To Research Medical Symptoms And Diagnoses

Discussion in 'Education & Personal Growth' started by Rihana, Oct 11, 2016.

  1. Sparkle

    Sparkle Platinum IL'ite

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    Ok, maybe there are external factors that add up to the probability of the accuracy of the test results. Maybe they have some algorithms or formulae pre-designed for certain illnesses.
    They study for years, I can only imagine some calculations specific to the medical world. :yikes:
     
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  2. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Yes, they do. We'll get to that!
     
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  3. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Yes, this is a problem. In the United States, this is handled quite well, by giving out fact-sheets. You get one for pretty much anything you go in for - from flu shots (warning you about Guillain-Barre) to surgery. This could be implemented in India as well. However, that still leaves lacunae for the uneducated people or more importantly, people who are not comfortable in English. Everything is more complicated in India!

    Finding highly talented, well trained physicians is not a problem in India, especially for procedures where you have time to undertake some research. There is no shortage of capable people. The major problem, as I see it, is a poorly organized medical/hospital system. All the efforts of a first rate physician can be nullified by - in no particular order - mediocre nursing care, poor support staff, poor maintenance of instrumentation*, patient non-compliance, adulterated drugs, iatrogenic illnesses, lack of review boards & case reviews - you name it! The only part of the machine that seems to work well is the revenue generating bit. This is true in the US as well, but some checks and balances do exist - mostly because they don't want you to die before you have paid your bills probably!!:icon_writing::BangHead:

    *Like that horrifying instance of multiple deaths due to a lack of well maintained back-up generators in Chennai hospitals during the floods last year. I mean, how can one ever check on that?!:yikes:
     
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  4. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    They give those fact-sheets and make you sign for everything so you don't sue them.

    This fact sheets mention thing reminded me of something related that I have to look up - are schools required to get signed consent from parents before they perform any medical or physical exam on the child in middle school such as hearing test, vision check and scoliosis screening. I saw trucks parked in the local school one day, and turns out, those were for school children undergoing hearing test. Was most creepy. Stationary truck with windows covered, a child entering, and exiting after a few minutes, and then next child entering.
     
  5. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Yes, of course, 'liability' is a part of everything that corporate medicine does.:rolleyes::mad:

    I would expect that to be the case, especially since you do not know who is performing the exam and more importantly, who is getting that data! Where does that information go? How does one know that it is HIPAA compliant? It's possible that some form signed in the beginning of the year has this as part of the small print, but I would want to see an explicit request, documentation and approval.
     
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  6. Sparkle

    Sparkle Platinum IL'ite

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    Fact-sheets are a really nice idea. Yes, everything needs to be localised, else its not going to reach the audience.
    Another challenge w.r.t fact sheets or even listening to information provided by doctors is that people are just not interested. Most of us have to wait for really long hours to get the tests done, to even collect the test results, often taking time out from important work. Indians are extremely impatient when it comes to waiting in hospitals. Everyone wants the quickest solution. In-between details are of no interest to majority of the population.

    The bigger the hospital/system, the larger the blind spots are. As in this case.
     
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  7. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    That is a horrible story, straight out of Ivan Karamazov's playbook, but believe it or not, hospital line infections are quite common and simple methods to track and avoid them have been implemented only recently, even in the US; idiotic very avoidable mistakes still happen when hospital crews neglect procedure. Another argument in favor of medical / hospital savvy.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2016
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  8. Laks09

    Laks09 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Am I still banned from the quiz?:mask::mask:

    @sokanasanah - I'm waiting for your explanation on Bayes to "explain" to the kid.
     
  9. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    No, you are no longer banned. You can try explaining Bayes to the vast audience of this thread o_O. It is after all, one of the most useful weapons in the arsenal of a thinking person in the 21st century, a mere 300 years after the good reverend. However, one of my aims in that post was to avoid the subtleties of Bayes in favor of an explanation using natural frequencies, which will follow.
     
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  10. sokanasanah

    sokanasanah IL Hall of Fame

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    Prelude:
    In reading what follows, it is useful to keep the following 4 possibilities in mind. We all know this, but we don't pay attention to it. If you look at it for a minute, this should make sense. These are the four possibilities for any test.

    (1) Individual has disease. Test picks it up. This tells you how sensitive the test is. No test is 100% sensitive.
    (2) Individual does NOT have disease. But test is positive. This is a false-positive. All tests do this at some low rate.
    (3) Individual has disease, test fails to pick it up. This is a false-negative. No test is 100% perfect.
    (4) Individual does not have disease. Test is negative. This is called 'specificity' of the test.

    A good test has high sensitivity and specificity. No test is perfect.

    PS: I tried to use tabs/spaces to make rows and columns, but that does not come out right in the final post. So we will leave this as it is. If you are feeling super enthusiastic (I mean, how could you not be?:lol:) there are a lot of explanations on the web, with as many statistical frills as you can stomach!
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2016
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