verisimi a day ago

Have you heard of Iatrogenesis?

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis

> In 2013, an estimated 142,000 persons died from adverse effects of medical treatment, up from an estimated 94,000 in 1990.

Careful what you wish for!

And, imo, an awful lot of deaths are due to issues that cannot be classified as caused by doctors - eg dosage error over time, something that mitigates symptoms but allows the underlying to deteriorate, etc.

  • kulahan 15 hours ago

    I’m very ready to have a conversation about whether or not there is a point where we should stop advancing healthcare because people probably shouldn’t be immortal, but doing it by making your healthcare workers struggle under the extreme weight of all the patients they need to care for probably is not the approach.

    I simply don’t think we have the medical knowledge necessary yet to know what the “right” number of health care professionals is.

  • jmcgough a day ago

    Most premature death in this country is from chronic disease. It's nearly impossible to get a PCP in many parts of the country. Gastroenterology is like a four month wait here.