Story Peeps Change Lives

I Grew Up Believing That Doctors Care About People

Written by Lazrus

I grew up believing that doctors care about people and that you should always trust whatever they say, because they are looking out for your best interest.  Many people still think this way, but I hope that my review of the doctors in my life and my families lives changes this false perception forever.

(Please forward a link of this to your friends because sooner or later someone you know will become a victim of a bad or money hungry doctor, if they are not smart enough to take matters into their own hands!)

A decade ago my mom went to our internal medicine doctor here in central Massachusetts. She found a few lumps in her breast tissue during her monthly breast exam that she performed on herself. She was really worried about the lumps, because she was in her mid forties, so she scheduled an appointment with “Dr. Trust Me, I know What’s Best For You!”

She went to the appointment and came back mortified. The doctor told her that the lumps in her breasts are cancerous after performing an exam and an x-ray. He wanted to schedule her to have both breast removed to prevent the cancer from spreading. He didn't even tell her to get a biopsy!

My mom being the way she is didn’t tell anyone of our family members at the time, she contemplated on what to do and finally decided to get a second opinion; since recently she saw a show on Opera that talked about doctors being wrong and misdiagnosing people on a routine basis.

Well my mom’s story ended well because she switched to a new doctor and ended her relationship with the family doctor who has been taking care of us for over 20 years. The new doctor scheduled a biopsy and found the lumps to be benign; basically harmless.

My personal reviews of the doctors in my life stem from a different topic, but still provide you with an amazing revealing of how medicine is actually practiced here in America. I'm sure it's practiced the same in other countries, because greed and stupidity are universal human flaws.

I get this rare condition called pancreatitis. By doing my own research and personal studies I have found that being highly stressed, eating fatty foods, or consuming alcohol can make my pancreas swell up. This is similar to an allergic reaction and the inflammation causes me to experience extreme amounts of pain. I’m not bragging here, you should look up how painful pancreatitis can be if you are really curious , because I had no idea that any human can undergo so much pain and still live, until it actually happened to me.

BTW: You can read about my first pancreatitis experience here on Story Peeps.

Anyways pancreatitis is a condition that bewilders these so called medical geniuses that are supposed to cure people. In my several years of dealing with this condition I have seen over 9 specialists and each one of these gastrointestinal gurus had different opinions on what is causing it, as well as different opinions on how to treat it.

The first time I went to a hospital the horrible doctor in the ER gave me the absolute worst case scenario of what's happening to me and scared me to death, before any treatment was administered. Aren't doctors supposed to help you think positive and hopeful during any type of emergency?

My family doctor met me at the local hospital during one of my many hospital visits during a flare up. He scared the crap out of me because he said that I may be getting a pseudo cyst, and that it will most likely be cancerous. My family doctor was very morbid or just wished the worst case scenerios for his patients apparently; 1st my mom, then me! What a loser!

Well I’ve met many more doctors that cared about me getting worse and becoming a valuable – profitable customer for them, instead of doctors who believed that I don’t have to get crazy operations. It's so strange to me, because internet research shows that these operations hardly help people get rid of this condition and in some cases the condition gets worse. I guess doctors are hopping that people don't do any internet research prior to becoming their customer.... oops I meant patient.

I had doctors recommend the removal of my gallbladder even though there was no evidence that gall stones or sludge was causing the problem. I had doctors wanting to perform pancreatic sphincterotomy, a puestow procedure, and other unjustified surgeries as if health-care is a crap shoot! Well apparently it is, unless you are smart enough to take matters into your own hands and find out your true odds and statistics.

Listen I know that there are good doctors out there, but if you have a diagnosis that worries you, or if you have doubts about your doctor, please get a second, third, fourth, and fifth opinion! I got nine.

I really believed intuitively that I didn’t need to get any organ removed or modified to treat my pancreatitis flare ups. Throughout the years, I have modified my diet, reduced my stress levels, and abstained from alcohol completely, and my flare-ups still happen occasionally; but they are no longer as painful nor do they last as long.

Recently I saw three specialists after having an endoscopic ultrasound procedure; my regular GI doctor referred me to them. Anyways, I had it done and they found good news, the dilation in the tail of the pancreas reduced in size, there was no pseudo cyst,  nor any signs that there could be anything terrible wrong with me. By the way the dilation of the tail end of the pancreas was my GI's primary concern, he worried that it would get worse.

When I got home from my procedure my regular GI called me. I told him the good news and he actually still insisted on me having a surgery regardless of the news. The surgery would be performed by his fellow friend in the industry ;) I was so shocked that he recommended surgery because my condition GOT BETTER!!! And he still insisted on me getting surgery from some schmuck that looked at that the same MRI scan that others have looked at, in which they confirmed that I was born with pancreatic divisum. But the schmuck surgeon that my GI recommended to perform major surgery on me; (cutting of the tail of the pancreas) said he could find no evidence of the divisum. YEAH that's exactly who I want operating on me, some ASS who can't even read an MRI scan and agree with 3 other doctors on its results.

But wait… here’s another good review of my doctors performance. I asked them all on a case by case basis “If I get this surgery will my pancreatitis flare-ups completely go away considering I might have a pancreatic divisum, almost all of them told me that after the major surgery, I will still have cases of pancreatitis… ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!  

All I wanted was a consensus not a freaking smorgasbord of treatments which all involved major surgery, and what I got was a whole list of treatments that couldn’t do crap from me. In fact after studying people who had surgeries done to solve their pancreatitis flare-ups, I mostly found stories of people who never got healed. Many of them had complications or needed more surgeries, some even had to spend several months in the hospital because these so called healers (doctors) don’t know everything…

Chances are your doctor graduated from an Ivy league school(s) but his interest are in making money from you getting worse instead of better. After all if they heal you… They lose you as a customer… And that my friends means a few less beach houses and an E class Mercedes instead of the S class.

Aww…. God forbid that people should spread the real truth about their experiences with their doctors, because finally the world can realize that many of them are schmucks or just plain greedy assholes who look at you and your insurance companies as a means to pay their mortgages and college educations for their children.. And THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE YOU!

I’m not trying to be cynical with this review of doctors… Do your own research… ask around… Why is it that people get such different opinions from doctors? Why is it that doctors just accumulate patients instead of actually heal them? Gee I wonder?

Why do doctors recommend drugs with horrbile side effects over the old school drugs with fewer side effects that were proven to work effectively? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the millions of dollars in bonuses paid out to doctors who prescribe certain medications over others. Yeah I'm sure Pfizer cares about us more than making money, LOL!That must be why Pfizer also paid out the largest cash settlement of 2.3 Billion dollars from a whistleblower lawsuit regarding Bextra.

People please wake up, healthcare is all business these days, it's not actually about healing people!

Take care of yourself and do your own research… If you let other people make decisions for you, it can cost you years on your life; it can even kill you!

P.S. After my last follow-up from my endoscopic ultrasound procedure the three doctors I spoke to at the hospital said that there’s no reason for me to do anything right now… But maybe in another 6 months I should have another ERCP or endoscopic ultrasound just to see what’s going on..

My GI doctor calls 1 week prior to the follow-up meeting I mentioned above and tells me that he spoke to all 3 doctors and they all agreed I needed the surgery he recommended… LOL He freakin lied on my voicemail… and I used to trust this bastard since he graduated from several Ivy League schools, yet his business is not making me healthy its making me faulty!

Good Luck to all and take matters into your own hands… 

P.S.S try to catch the CNBC American Greed special about the dermatologist who performed mock surgeries just so that he can live in a 7 million dollar mansion in Michigan, while a majority of his patients didn’t need any surgeries at all.

He even lied to them that they had skin cancer; later many of them finally got a second opinion, after they heard he was indicted. They realized that they never had skin cancer but the greedy doctor performed countless surgeries on them to remove the fake cancer anyway…

Author Profile: Lazrus

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