Would You Want To Know?

ManlyBanisters

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Oh hell yes! The more I know the more I can mitigate the effects or keep an eye out for treatments that may develop in the meantime. Don't screw with your health. An informed patient is the best patient.

Yes - I agree - which is why I don't understand this bit from the article Princess linked to:

It may reveal incurable diseases long before they start causing illness. For GPs using the tests, this raises the difficult question of whether patients should be told, and if so, what counselling they should receive.

OK - on the counselling bit - but 'whether patients should be told'?? Of course they should. OK - so you find out you have an incurable disease, the article only mentions specifically forms of cancer and dementia so let's pick vCJD, that may not effect you for a long time to come - years say. The patient has the right to know that - it may well effect the way you decide to live the next ten years. You know? Fuck the pension fund, I'm going to buy me a fast car and develop a gambling habit. Or, I'm going to have kids at a younger age than I would have planned otherwise so I get to see them grow up.

The really important question - and the reason some folk may choose to steer clear of kits like this - is what the medical insurance companies are going to make of it all. "Oh, I'm sorry sir, we won't insure you unless you use this test kit twice a year and if anything shows up we'll hike your premiums through the roof or stop insuring you altogether! Please sign here..."

Scarey - but that is what will mostly likely come of it.

if it is incurable to i get the opportunity to become a doc holiday style badass on my way out? these are answers i need to know.

I like your way of thinking - remind me, if we are ever both terminally ill, to come party with you. :biggrin1:
 

SpoiledPrincess

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Yes - I agree - which is why I don't understand this bit from the article Princess linked to:
OK - on the counselling bit - but 'whether patients should be told'?? Of course they should.

I think there are still some doctors of the old school who think they should only tell patients things they think they can handle or if what they have is treatable.

Doctors still play God unfortunately and I can see that this test wouldn't be welcomed by a lot of the medical profession who might think it's impinging on their medical authority.

I don't know how easy it would be to use but I can see a downside if the results are at all ambiguous of surgeries being flooded with patients who are convinced they've got two days to live.
 

jason_els

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True Princess. Doctors in Japan rarely tell their patients when they have a terminal illness. It's considered extremely rude to tell someone they're going to die. Instead they tell the family who, in turn, helps keep the patient in the dark while arranging treatments or final plans. It is considered best for the patient not to know and never for the community to know. Extreme illness (or deformity/impairment) is shunned in Japan and were someone's friends to know, they would be shunned as well.