Trends in getting information on health and medical matters 1

One of the things that fascinates us is that it’s claimed that, not that long ago, certainly less than 100 years ago, 50 per cent of the people in the US were involved in the production of food – now it’s 3 per cent.

Apparently, when Henry Ford’s received criticisms that working in his factories could be boring, his reply in the 1920s, not even a hundred years ago, was that working in his factories 9 hours a day wouldn’t be as boring as walking behind a single furrow plough, being pulled by a horse, 16 hours a day. So obviously this was happening in the 1920s, people walking for 16 hours a day a single furrow plough being pulled by a horse – to be replaced by people sitting in air conditioned cabins on huge tractors pulling 40 or 50 furrow ploughs and other huge pieces of farm machinery.

But what fascinates us even more is that developments like this are going to happen, are starting to happen already, in all sorts of areas – and in none more than in providing information on health and medical matters.

One of our readers reports that, nearly 2 years ago, quite by accident, he located a Cardiologist in Sydney who was/is amazingly quick and helpful in responding to requests for information on Cardiology matters, which he’s sent 2 or 3 times – the only doctor he’s found like that in more than 11 years of searching.

He saw him first, in April, 2018, when it took more than 2 hours to see him, and then a month or so ago, again, when it was even worse. He says it’s a strange feeling walking into a fairly big waiting room, with more than 25 people sitting in it, all looking at each other.

He says he got there a bit early for his appointment, sat in the main waiting room for nearly an hour before one of his assistants called him into another room and spent 5 or 6 minutes carrying out a few tests on him, then sat in the waiting room for about another hour before another assistant called him into another room and again spent 5 or 6 minutes carrying some more tests on him, and then, after nearly 3 hours,  saw the doctor himself for 5 or 6 minutes – he says none of this was ideal, of course, but that he’s quite happy to keep him as his Cardiologist, despite all the waiting, and despite the fact that it’s a long way out of his way to see him, (a) because he hasn’t got any real Cardiology issues, (the doctor told him he had a “very very good heart,”) and, (b) because he probably only needs to see him every 18 months or so, know that if he needs any information in between face-to-face consultations he can get it by email.

He says the doctor must spend so many hours a week answering emails!

And there are three additional interesting things about this.

Firstly, that our reader says that although he’s repeatedly asked the doctor for his bank detail so that he can pay him for his help, but he refuses to provide them – presumably because he’s afraid there are those who would come down on him like a ton of bricks for doing what he’s doing

Secondly, that he’s never disclosed his true identity to the doctor, so the doctor doesn’t even whether he’s replying to a patient or a non-patient.

Thirdly, our reader won’t even reveal the doctor’s identity to us, presumably because he doesn’t want the doctor to become even busier.

We believe that there are those who will fight tooth and nail to keep things as they are, and have been for hundreds of years – that if people want information on health and medical matters, they will have to line up for face -to-face consultations, that this is all this is going to change. And that if there aren’t doctors who will change it, there will be others who will.

More later.

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