Looking for rebuttals to "Dr's are just in it for the money"

[ca3799]

I'm an RN and a skeptic.

When AltMed topics come up in my field, I usually try to ask the person advocating the Alt treatment a couple of 'thinking' questions to get their skeptical juices flowing. You guys probably know that doesn't make me very popular at work.

Somewhere on-line a while back I saw a list of common AltMed complaints against the 'evil medical establishment/complex' and their rebuttals. You know the complaints: "Dr's are just in it for the money and don't really have a stake in a patient getting well", "Dr's just treat disease, not people", etc.

I can't seem to locate that article again.

Is anyone familiar with the article I'm seeking?

[BTox]

Originally posted by ca3799
I'm an RN and a skeptic.

When AltMed topics come up in my field, I usually try to ask the person advocating the Alt treatment a couple of 'thinking' questions to get their skeptical juices flowing. You guys probably know that doesn't make me very popular at work.

Somewhere on-line a while back I saw a list of common AltMed complaints against the 'evil medical establishment/complex' and their rebuttals. You know the complaints: "Dr's are just in it for the money and don't really have a stake in a patient getting well", "Dr's just treat disease, not people", etc.

I can't seem to locate that article again.

Is anyone familiar with the article I'm seeking?

Not sure of which article you are thinking of but the quackwatch site has an entire section on "alternative" medicine. Scroll down to Questionable Products, Services and Theories, under "alternative" and "complementary" methods:

quackwatch (http://www.quackwatch.org/)

[T'ai Chi]

About the money issue, I always ask people what price they think the human body is worth, and tell them that it is probably the most expensive thing there is. Moreover, Dr's are incredibly skilled professionals, who wouldn't go to school and practice as long as they do if they weren't at all deeply interested in what they do for non-financial reasons. Also, money is usually a part of a job! The fact that they are doctors doesn't mean they are in it for the money any more than if it was any other job. In other words, one could use the 'in it for the money' argument to say there is a conspiracy about any other profession: car mechanics, politicians, professors, actors, etc. Last, if money is evil, tell them to give you theirs! :)

About the treating disease not the person, that seems to be semantics. If a person has a disease, then that person and their disease are necessarily entangled (for example, cancer does not exist apart from cells), and to treat the disease is to necessarily treat the person.

[Deetee]

When alternative woowoos complain Drs are just in it for the money, I like to remind them how popular and profitable the alt/complementary therapy market is.
Consider that the promoters usually need no formal qualification or undergo training, the products they sell come with no research costs, little in the way of production costs or quality control, and are worth pennies but sold for pounds, and then ask who makes money from them.
Just a bit of water on a lactose tablet and hey presto! - Yours for £9.99 - homoeopathic remedy for x/y/z!

[Suezoled]

I enjoy how a doctor, a real medical doctor, will spend 4 years in undergrad, several years in graduate, a couple years interning, and then if they specialize, it eats more time from their life span. If they wanted to get rich quick, they could just sell quack cures and get degrees in naturopathy. Well, if they could abandon the idea that those practices involve deceit, misinformation, and fleecing the "patients."

[DVFinn]

Statement: "Drs. are just in it for the money."

Rebuttal: "So this alternative stuff is all free then, right?"

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by T'ai Chi

About the treating disease not the person, that seems to be semantics. If a person has a disease, then that person and their disease are necessarily entangled (for example, cancer does not exist apart from cells), and to treat the disease is to necessarily treat the person.

That's quite true. I also think that "naturopaths" and their ilk throw the phrase "I treat the person not the disease" around becuase it makes a nice catchy soundbite. People love a nice catchy soundbite even if it means absolutely nothing.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


That's quite true. I also think that "naturopaths" and their ilk throw the phrase "I treat the person not the disease" around becuase it makes a nice catchy soundbite. People love a nice catchy soundbite even if it means absolutely nothing.

You'll also hear homeopaths say, and people who believe in such hooey regurgitate, the following: "Allopathic" medicine only treats the symptoms, homeopathy cures the condition.

I say condition because usually homeopaths claim disease does not cause medical problems, instead they are due to miasmas and other nonsensical hogwash.

[ca3799]

Well I agree..when I hear "they're just in it for the money" I usually ask if the treatment is free, or if so-and-so charges for that colonic, etc., that kind of stuff. Usually, they person will concede that maybe the Dr is not just in it for the money, but the evil pharmaceutical companies are (shifting the villian).

One lady told me her Applied Kineseologist didn't charge her. So I asked if her remedies were free, too.

I wish I could remember where I saw all the arguements collected together.

For the statement that Dr's just treat disease and aren't interested in the 'whole person', I ask why established medicine has wasted all that time developing immunizations, advising against smoking and dietary excesses, encouraging regular prenatal care, etc.

[thaiboxerken]

I figure that, even if a doctor is in it "just for the money", he would be motivated to be a good doctor. After all, doctors with poor performance won't have many patients. I think this whole "new age" stuff is a cry against capitalism also.

[Hazelip]

The monetary incentive should work rather nicely for providing quality, working, sound medical care. If you only cared about money, it would be a simple thing to just prescribe any old thing and bill the HMO...until you got sued.

Funny how ALTMed people don't worry much about that...

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by thaiboxerken
I figure that, even if a doctor is in it "just for the money", he would be motivated to be a good doctor. After all, doctors with poor performance won't have many patients. I think this whole "new age" stuff is a cry against capitalism also.

Nah, New agers seem to like capitalism just fine, provided that THEY are the ones getting the money. If you blow your money on coral calcium, homeopathic remedies and such, capitalism is fine and dandy. If your money goes to pay a bona fide doctor instead of buying ginseng tea or whatever, it's THEN that they start crying that doctors are only in it for the money.

In short, they are ok with capitalism, what they don't like is competition.

[Beleth]

Q. What do they call alternative medicine that works?


A. Medicine.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Beleth
Q. What do they call alternative medicine that works?


A. Medicine.

Q. And what does Modern Medicne call "quackery" that works?

A. Quackery

-- Rouser

[geni]

Originally posted by Rouser2


Q. And what does Modern Medicne call "quackery" that works?

A. Quackery


The question only makes sence if there is a form of quackery that works.

back to the origanl question try this quote

ChaCha,

They only prescribe one medicine at a time? Is this always the case?

I ask because my first appointment, as I mentioned in another post, is tomorrow, and it's $450 f'n dollars. I'm 20. Follow-up appointments are $110. Like HELL if I'm going to go only to be prescribed ONE remedy, have it may/may not work, and pay another $110 to get another one.....L!K:%$J!L#


from here (http://www.hpathy.com/FORUM/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=2&TopicID=699&SearchPagePosition=1&search=%24450&searchMode=allwords&searchIn=Thread&forum=0&searchSort=dateDESC&ReturnPage=Search)

[BTox]

Originally posted by Rouser2


Q. And what does Modern Medicne call "quackery" that works?

A. Quackery

-- Rouser

By definition, quackery does not work. Nice try, though!

[The Don]

Certainly here in the UK, the one thing the alternative brigade have over your harrassed General Practitioner (GP) is time. With your alternative "healer" you have say 30 minutes in which you can explore what's really troubling you. You can feel as though you're bing helped.

Your GP has about 5 minutes in which to see you.

Of course you could see a doctor privately and have the double bonus of effective treatment and compassion

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by BTox


By definition, quackery does not work. Nice try, though!

By "definition"??? But it is you who has repeatedly refused to devulge your definition of "quackery". But you have no hesitation in referring people to your favorite "quackwatch" site. And Dr. Quackwatch specifically includes nostroms that "work" in his definition of "quackery". Now then, if you have another definition, what is it????

-- Rouser

[UnrepentantSinner]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep
That's quite true. I also think that "naturopaths" and their ilk throw the phrase "I treat the person not the disease" around becuase it makes a nice catchy soundbite. People love a nice catchy soundbite even if it means absolutely nothing.

Originally posted by Rouser2


Q. And what does Modern Medicne call "quackery" that works?

A. Quackery

-- Rouser

:i:

[thaiboxerken]

Quack: An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by thaiboxerken

Quack: An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment.

Strickly speaking, such an person is an imposter, not a quack. Such a definition conveniently excludes all of those quack doctors who have valid MD credentials and training and still practice quack type remedies. According to the quackwatch website, quackery is simply "over-promotion". Puffery, if you will. By that definition, Most of the Nostrums of Modern Medicine would fall under the definition of "quackery".


"To avoid semantic problems, quackery could be broadly defined as "anything involving overpromotion in the field of health."


http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/quackdef.html

-- Rouser

[Ladewig]

For the statement that Dr's just treat disease and aren't interested in the 'whole person', I ask why established medicine has wasted all that time developing immunizations, advising against smoking and dietary excesses, encouraging regular prenatal care, etc

If I may play the kook's advocate for a moment:
Immunizations are a way of making people sick years down the road - hence more profit for the doctors.
Success in Advising against smoking would ultimately raise, not lower medical expenses. If everyone quit smoking today, medical costs would drop but within 20 years, they would rise to levels above today's. As people stopped dying from lung cancer, they would live longer and require more long-term care.
Encouraging regular prenatal care means that the doctor can prescribe unnecessary medicine and proceedures.

Once you put on the tinfoil cap of kookiness (or the velvet cloak of monetary fraud) everything can be interpreted in your favor.

[Zero]

If you went to your job, and they asked you to start working for free, would you do it, or would you insist on getting paid for your efforts? Everybody is at their job to make money, that's not limited to doctors or anyone else.

I don't see the homeopathic quacks giving away their 'energized' tap water for free, do you?

[thaiboxerken]

Strickly speaking, such an person is an imposter, not a quack.

No, not at all. Homeopaths and naturpaths pretend to be physicians in concept.. they just call themselves something else.

Such a definition conveniently excludes all of those quack doctors who have valid MD credentials and training and still practice quack type remedies.

Such a person is not a quack, but a poor doctor that should be disbarred. If he practices at that point, he is then a quack. However, a MD can practice quackery.

According to the quackwatch website, quackery is simply "over-promotion".

I don't agree with that definition and it is not a definition widely accepted. I got my definition from dictionary.com .

[BTox]

Originally posted by Rouser2


By "definition"??? But it is you who has repeatedly refused to devulge your definition of "quackery". But you have no hesitation in referring people to your favorite "quackwatch" site. And Dr. Quackwatch specifically includes nostroms that "work" in his definition of "quackery". Now then, if you have another definition, what is it????

-- Rouser

No, I gave you my definition of quackery in the other thread. And specifically which nostrums defined as quackery on quackwatch "work"?

[NullPointerException]

The concept of a miasm causing disease is probably adapted from ancient stories about Oni or Demons in the east being blamed for generated Miasma to make people sick. Often times scamming priests would charge an arm and a leg to get rid of the demon and than say it would take several days for the Lord/Lady to recover.(but he of course had urgent appointments elsewhere and couldn't stick around to see the results, also he proclaims that they waited to long to seek his help and the Lord/Lady may not survive)

Things like the above are the primary reason I think that learning history doesn't help prevent repeats.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by BTox


No, I gave you my definition of quackery in the other thread. And specifically which nostrums defined as quackery on quackwatch "work"?


You'll have to ask your Dr. Quackwatch that one. Obviously, such a definition is designed to prevent the untoward from happening -- namely, where something he calls "quackery" to actually work. But your definition and his have one thing in common -- whatever and whoever you call a "quack" or "quackery", then that's what it is.


-- Rouser

[athon]

Originally posted by The Don
Certainly here in the UK, the one thing the alternative brigade have over your harrassed General Practitioner (GP) is time. With your alternative "healer" you have say 30 minutes in which you can explore what's really troubling you. You can feel as though you're bing helped.

Your GP has about 5 minutes in which to see you.

Of course you could see a doctor privately and have the double bonus of effective treatment and compassion

Australia's the same, and getting worse. I typically hear how GP's (I still hate calling them doctors - pedantic, I know, but after working with specialists who are real doctors in the field, I feel the distinction should be made) are in it for the money. These people know nothing of the indemnity crisis, of the long hours, and how many doctors aren't exactly raking it in. A good friend of mine is a computer programmer - when doing contract work, he makes more than any GP I know.

I considered going into medicine when I was still a scientist. I think I would have done well, except I couldn't deny that there is a huge responsiblity. GP's can be sued over anything - most of their pay goes into fees and insurances because some arrogant morons feel that GP's are gods! And yet 'alternatives' can get away with it? Huh?

It's a senstive topic, obviously. And in Australia right now, one that needs fixing. If doctors are in it for the money, they need their heads checked.

Athon