"I Hate Doctors and..." A Brief Study on Google Search
On June 30 2005, I started my posting with the following:
"A visitor came today to my blog from Google with the search words “I hate doctors”. While, I don’t know the true motivation and concern of this visitor, I think that this visitor’s search terms are consistent with the ambivalent feeling people have about doctors. Whether it is fair to characterize this ambivalence in the extremes of “love” and “hate” or some more moderate terms can be considered but obviously the ambivalence is a realistic phenomenon."
Today, almost 2 years later, there are now 84 comments to that posting which I titled "I Hate Doctors" and, of course, many, many more visitors who didn't comment. This has been one of my most popular postings. I wondered whether we physicians were the most hated people who are supposed to serve the public. So I went back to Google today and entered the words "I hate..." and finished the expression with "doctors" and found there were 18,300 sites using those words. Then I replaced "doctors" with "nurses" and then a whole bunch of other jobs and below is the results I obtained. I am not sure whether this study says anything significant about the publics opinion of these different classes of activities but I thought the listing would be of interest to my visitors. So here they are:
I HATE...
Doctors 18,300
Nurses 659
Lawyers 10,100
Politicians 994
Ministers 5
Police 704
Judges 676
Actors 623
Actresses 190
Plumbers 424
Used Car Dealers 127
New Car Dealers 7
Insurance Agents 10, Insurance Companies 684
Realtors 505
and then I put in the words "I Hate Men" 70,800
and naturally I tried "I hate Women" 54,500
and finally to establish the ambivalence between to hate and to love doctors I put in "I love Doctors" and Google said there were 9,760 sites with those words, a little more than half of the hated.
Again, what this little exercise with Google's Search Engine means, I really don't know but it does seem that doctors lead the way in expressions of hate as compared to other professions and employment. What can we do to improve our image and our behavior, if necessary? For specific comments on this question just go back to the "I Hate Doctors" posting and add to the comments. ..Maurice.
posted by Maurice Bernstein, M.D. @ 7:11:00 PM
17 comments
17 Comments:
Cheer up doc...325,000 for "I hate traffic wardens"...
It never fails to amaze me, what searches bring people onto blogs.
I had a reader the other day based on a google search for "Fat lady G strings" and I'm still not sure how this linked to me!
Max,
You can't base anything on a google search. goodness, someone came to my blog when they googled in..."Fat grandma doing it with the dog".... For goodness sake, google takes bits and pieces of posts and combines them to make their own terms. I once wrote about how fat our dog was and many times I write about our 4 grandchildren, so of course google mixes it all up and there you go.
Anonymous, however generally if you enter quotes around the expression you are checking, Google will provide you with sites that bear that same expression. If the quotes are left off then perhaps only a single word such as "doctors" or "hate" will appear on the site and of course there will be orders of magnitude greater numbers of sites presented most of which will not be relevent to the context which was sought. ..Maurice.
But Dr. Bernstein, 74,300 "hate being sick" ... so the odds are still in your favor! ;o)
Seriously though, I think that when it comes to things which are deeply personal, anyone who appears to be able to "control" us in any way is in line for some negative emotions.
And then, there's also the ignorance factor: we fear what we don't understand, and we hate what we fear.
I have no way of checking this out, but I have a feeling that you're far less likely to hear someone who understands medicine, or at least has studied about his own medical conditions, say that he hates doctors - than someone who has no idea of what you're talking about, and only sees you yearly (or less) for a check up.
The demystification of medicine goes a long way toward bringing about a sympathetic attitude toward a physician, because you understand what he's doing, and why he's doing it - and you're smart enough to appreciate it.
It's sad, but even in our "enlightened" day and age, Mr. John Doe is not very well informed about medicine, and doesn't understand his physician's role vis-à-vis himself and his healthcare. He jogs, takes vitamins, drinks mineral water, exercises, tries to eat right, but can't fathom why lab work or tests are ordered on his behalf ... and rather than be grateful that his physician caught that there could be something wrong, suspects the poor fellow of trying to dupe him into expensive tests so that he can pay off his Mercedes.
I've said it before: you guys have a rough job. Sometimes I wonder why any of you do it.
That is an easy question to answer: they do it for the money. It is a myth to say doctors are overworked. Doctors have a license to print money, they don't have to be polite, kind, respectful, engaging, concerned, or patient. They can even refuse to treat you. Teachers have a rough job, doctors are on easy street.
I think people put a 'too big hope' from a doctor..we (physician as server) should realize that patients need word, touch, time to discuss, not just a medicine..
» anonymous (Saturday, June 09, 2007 2:38:00 AM)
many of my colleagues in the perifer will not point to money..but poor doctors if they work just for money..
Wow. Saw this discussion a bit late, and have read through the comments with absolute fascination. What struck me was the disconnect between what patients were saying, and the doctors' responses. I was initially surprised that doctors should come out in the lead of hated professions. I had thought that the majority still had a sentimental and awe inspired "respect" for the medical profession. I do believe that is the case for the majority who are lucky enough to have good health, but it seldom lasts with the chronically ill, who find themselves often at the mercy of appalling treatment - not medically, but personally. I do believe that there are some excellent and caring doctors, but that there is a systemic problem in that some doctors either start off with inflated egos or acquire them along the way. They are not good at admitting their mistakes, lack empathy (to put it mildly) and seem to end up either fearing their patients or despizing them. The doctors posting here do not seem to begin to understand what the patients were saying - their reactions were hostile and defensive and often irrelevant. It's a hard job, and maybe you do more good than harm, but those are people in front of you, not defective mechanisms with vivid imaginations, and their complaints often have substance.
We might hate doctors because they engage in sexual misconduct a at rate far greater than the general male population. Studies such as one done by Vanderbilt Univ. indicate that the self-reported rate physician sexual misconduct is around one in 10 doctors. Other sources indicate that the actual rate is much higher.
Studies also indicate that only about one in 10 doctors who engage in sexual misconduct are ever caught. And we hate the doctors who make up the medical boards who hand out token discipline to the doctors who are caught, and send them out to prey on women again and again. Studies indicate that 40% of doctors disciplined for sexual misconduct are still practicing.
CLW
I guess I don't trust them. Doesn't seem like they want to restore a person to good health. About 2 years ago I had a heart pain incident. They ran all sorts of tests and really found out my heart was in decent shape. But they still put me on life-long medications. Ordered more tests. Eventually they concluded asthma. And put me on more lifelong drugs. Did they ever bring up re-evaluating the first set of drugs? Of course not. They got what they wanted. Oh, and I feel even worse. I think that their profession is full of charlatans and swindlers. In the very least they have sold their souls to the devil.
Anonymous from today, do you know about the "life-long" medications that you are taking and why you are still taking them? It is very important that you know what specifically are the benefits of the meds as well as their risks. If you don't, you should ask your doctors. Patients, for example, who have no evidence of heart disease at present but who have a family history or other associated medical conditions and who have elevated cholesterol levels may be put on cholesterol-lowering drugs, including statins, to be continued through the life of the patient. The prescription of anti-hypertension meds to be taken indefinitely may be prescribed in patients with normal hearts but who have uncontrolled persistent hypertension. So, if you haven't been told or haven't understood..ask your doctor!
With regard to who doctors are and what is the composition of the profession, don't jump to any conclusion. There are
of course, bad apples in the basket, but search out the fresh, sweet and tastey apples and you will be very pleased to eat one when you are hungry for an apple. ..Maurice.
Let me tell you, I LOVE doctors, because they make me so horny! Tell me more about the sexual misconduct. I think it's all those (supposedly) sterile tools that gave me my medical fetish...wow, I need medical help immediately, and NOT from a psychiatrist... ;-)
I've had it with docotrs. I refuse to go to the hospital with my husband because I am never told anything about what is going on. We both just had MRI's done for back problems and both of ours came back with a problem on our right kidney. There was no mix- up ,different problems I was told.
They called our family doctor right away after they saw my husbands and told them to do further tests and never called about my MRI. I had mine a week earlier and even dropped off a copy of the report that I recieved from my pain mangaement doctor. He never said anything either about the mass on the kidney. It must be nothing I guess since 3 medical personnel saw the x-ray and never bothered to tell me anything.
Also, I never get the follow up calls that my husband gets and don't feel I get the same treatment. When I would call for a appt.- which is NOT often, it's like I'm bothering them.
Anyway- just HAD to vent. By the way- yesterday my husband had his kidney removed and I was not told until 2 hours after the surgery where his room was. I never waited around for the doctor.
I never plan on having any kind of surgery- as I would rather deal with it or go on to a better life than to deal with the stuff that surgery does to you and what thay expect you to do before surgery.
Thanks for letting me get this out.
I hate female nurses. As A MALE they have little respect for our privacy. They're all unprofessional
if you want my oponion.
Muscleman, what behavior regarding privacy do you find is unprofessional in "all" nurses? ..Maurice.
I'm talking about female nurses in
particular.
Go to www.allnurses.com
search for whoa..inappropriate
then read the continuation
need I say more
"I hate female nurses. As A MALE they have little respect for our privacy. They're all unprofessional
if you want my oponion."
So basically they treat you the way male doctors have myself as a female. Even when I was a girl and it really screwed me up. You have my sympathy, I don't like how people are losing their privacy more and more. But what to do? I was told as a little girl, by my own parents, to keep going to the pediatrician that molested me and my brother or I might get sick and die.
I have some desperate hope that some day technology will allow people like us not to choose between our health and our privacy.
AI am dealing with a lot of concealment issues due to them hiding the damage I have to my body. They are NON human in my opinion.
Cannot trust any radiology reports I have been given..They have only changed 5 of them and i am smart enough to know what they are doing.
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