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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

Regarding gruff doctors: the least pleasant doctor I ever had was also the best I ever had. I found him offputting (outright rude at times) but he did the surgery and the after surgery bits with a high level of confidence. Over time I've learned to work well with doctors- they have a high opinion of themselves and don't like to be challenged, they have a whole collection of tools and care standards they normally follow, and they tend to be generally intelligent. They need to be handled carefully if you want to get the best out of them.

(fuck cancer)

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I think it's pretty easy to understand why. When somebody is very ill, they think their illness is the most important thing in the world, and it certainly is to them. But to a doctor, they're just one of the thousands of patients, all of whom think the same thing, that they've seen that year.

And everybody thinks that with perfect medical treatment, they'd be healed, when in reality that isn't the case. Some conditions are simply terminal and the best treatment in the world isn't going to change that. And you even have the equal but opposite happen on occasion. For instance cancer sometimes spontaneously goes into remission even without any treatment, which is going to lead to a rather great outcome regardless of how inappropriate (or nonexistent) the care may have been. Had this happened to Steve Jobs, we could've seen a catastrophic social cascade begin.

Doctors are going to see those odds and outcomes play out, day in, day out.

Re: bedside manner

I found surgeons to be like SWEs personality wise, so there's that.

SRE, not SWE.

I know HOUSE is a fictional character but I use the character as a example of a doctor I would prefer. Someone who cuts through BS, tells me straight without any bedside manor.

And as a patient, if I'm doing something stupid, say I'm an idiot. But just diagnose and treat my illness quickly and efficiently no matter how common or rare.

tldr: I like 'House' type doctors over the opposite.

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