A cardiologist told my father about 15 years ago to come in the next day for surgery, or else he would die. He didn't get a second opinion. Maybe he needed it, maybe he didn't. Bernie Siegel MD,
http://berniesiegelmd.com/.
a former professor of surgery at Yale talked to numerous conferences of doctors. He would read a diagnosis and make a bet with them. “Tell me within six months when this patient dies. If you win, I pay you a year’s salary. If you lose, pay me a year’s salary.” No one ever took him up on it. He admonished them, “How can you tell a patient he has 3 months to live?”
My father had a 14 hour heart surgery with an anesthetic that ruined his short term memory and sense of direction while driving. I'll spare you the gruesome details of what ensued, except to say it was dangerous for him to drive more than about ten minutes from his home. He knew there was something wrong but was in denial. I was told by a PhD in neurophysiology that particular anesthesia had a similar effect on a lot of old people, and they could not accept they had a problem. I wanted to send my father’s driver’s license back to the DMV but didn't. It's a very heavy set of decisions when adult children have to start taking responsibility for aging parents. My mother was 90 years old and in a lot of pain after a very difficult surgery. I wanted her to go back to the emergency room, and she refused saying she had suffered enough there. She won and lived another five years. When my father's license expired, he was driving without a license for a while. I didn't know that. He did a lot of damage to himself but never had an accident that killed or injured anyone.
Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US. It used to be the fifth in the 1970s.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical- ... -of-death/
I'm not against medical doctors. I've had 2 surgeries, one on my meniscus, and had my gall bladder removed after numerous gallstone attacks. I try to be an educated consumer. It doesn't always work. Sometimes, you only find out the hard way, and that could take decades.
