[rustman123]

It’s also demonizing doctors and the healthcare system a bit too much for my liking.

I’m located in Europe, so I may have a slightly different view, but my doctors clearly care and discuss with me about prevention, risks, tradeoffs, …

They praise the methods of the „good“ doctors and stamps the others as driven by financial gain. Who says the expensive ones are any better in this regard? Who says they are more or less exaggerating the importance of test results to make you come back?

[lotyrin]

In the US my best doctors produce out of date advice about obvious things, have a very distinct gap between "everyday" (stuff they actually see) and "incredibly rare" (stuff unique enough to be a case study they heard about) in their knowledge/understanding and rarely advise things that require me to be a proactive and rational person (because they don't serve these often), so they'll spend two seconds being like "diet and exercise" without a discussion on how that'd work or what adjustments I'd actually make (leaving me to do this research myself) and then suggest a prescription (because even their least proactive patient will probably take a pill). They'll wait until things become a disorder before addressing them (or discussing with me how to address them).

The worst will basically laugh me out of their office for daring to belong to a marginalized identity or failing to already have the health knowledge I'm there trying to gain from them.

Maybe I have awful luck... but I have very little faith at this point. The most effective relationship I had was with a hack who was willing to just prescribe whatever I asked him for and order whatever tests I asked him for (I think most of his patient base were college students seeking amphetamine salts).

[rootusrootus]

I'm in the US, and my experience has been similar. My doctor is good, and while we're usually limited to 30 minutes at my appointment, we have good conversations and rarely is his answer "here is another pill" or "go take this random test."

[bluGill]

I'm in the us and my doctors have all done the same. Though it is obvious most people are not listening to them.