Second Opinion

  When the doctor delivers the diagnosis of a disease, the patient, surprised to hear it, asks for a second opinion.  The doctor says, "OK, I also think you're a fat slob." 
   So that passes as a joke, but not a very funny one, especially to us older folks.
Before the widespread use of ultrasounds, CT scans, MRI's, even x-rays, it used to be said that doctors diagnoses were correct less than 50% of the time. I can remember my mother visiting the family doctor because she had pains in her stomach and asked what it was.  He told her he wasn't able to see inside her belly, but told her to take some medicine that might help. Later when she threw up blood, he was able to diagnose her with a stomach ulcer--a bleeding stomach ulcer.
    For sure, medicine has improved since those long ago days, but it is far from a perfect science. Technology allows a better look into our insides, but patients are still subjected to a whole slew of "differential diagnoses."  The more detailed inspection of the body opens to the insight that the human body contains imperfections and irregularities that may or may not cause symptoms, and those symptoms may be a sign of disease, or not.
    With so many options on the table, so to speak, and with so many more medical staff involved, plus the lack of relationship to the patient, the chances for error and misdiagnosis are many. It's a cliche, and wrong, to say that the doctors don't care.  They just don't care enough.
   I don't think I'm special in any way, nor do I think I have worse luck than most but, medically, in a little over a year's time:
   * I was led down a hospital corridor and handed materials for an invasive procedure instead of a routine US.
   * I was told that an embedded tick posed no threat on one visit where it was removed, that what looked like the typical bullseye rash on a second visit was just from scratching, but a third visit, to another facility, resulted in a positive Lyme test.
   *  I was brought into a room at the urologist's and handed preparation for a surgical procedure when I was there for a follow-up office visit
  *  Underwent major surgery based on ultrasound readings that were later found to be incorrect. "Those things happen sometimes," said the doctor.
   * Wore a Holter Monitor for 48 hours and was later called and told it had been mixed up and/or erased.
 
 Who knows what's next.