This is the kind of thing I see a lot in medicine here - the docs saw a young teen, feeling lousy, fatigued, and heard hoofbeats, and assumed it was mono. A reasonable suggestion, but they didn’t consider the differential diagnosis, the list of all the things it COULD be.
So, there is a saying in medicine that “when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” Which goes to show why you shouldn’t practice medicine based on sayings or rules-of-thumb, aka heuristics. Because you’ll be wrong a certain percentage of the time.
That’s why I always tell people that I want my doctors to be like Dr. House. :-) I don’t care how nasty they are to me as long as they are curious and skeptical of the most likely scenario.
Oh, and atheist helps too - i don’t want my Doctor thinking, “well, she’s going to a better place.” I want my doctor thinking that this IS the best place. :-)
The National Health Service (NHS) is free at the point of use for the patient though there are charges associated with eye tests, dental care, prescriptions, and many aspects of personal care.
The NHS provides the majority of healthcare in England, including primary care, in-patient care, long-term healthcare, ophthalmology and dentistry. The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948. Private health care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for largely by private insurance, but it is used by less than 8% of the population[citation needed], and generally as a top-up to NHS services. Recently there have been some examples where unused private sector capacity has been used to increase NHS capacity and in some cases the NHS has commissioned the private sector to establish and run new facilities on a sub contracted basis. Some new capital programs have been financed through the private finance initiative. The involvement of the private sector remains relatively small yet, according to one survey by the BMA, a large proportion of the public oppose such involvement.[2]
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_England
I agree; most doctors do not take a full history and review of symptoms, but merely go after the topmost layer. The several times I have had a life-threatening organic condition in my lifetime, including a bleeding internal rupture, every time I was sent home the first or second or third time with no diagnosis, or was offered antacids or anti-depressants.
The latest medical odyssey in our extended family was a fairly common yet physically devastating condition that my family member suggested to the doctors that she had — because it runs in her side of the family — but it took six years to get an “official” diagnosis, and two years to get the correct dose of medication — just as the economy was going south and her need for enough health and energy to save her work situation was critical. Her professional and personal losses were substantial, and she couldn’t even make a claim on her disability policy because by the time the four doctors involved realized just how bad it looked, they were unwilling to admit it for the record, and she was by then too strapped to undergo the stress of suing them.
They just don’t have time to listen any more. How many of us are similarly out of patience?
The flip side is to do 1000 tests for the common cold...