how did the baby boomers do it and why?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Asguard, Mar 10, 2009.

  1. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    we are doing sociology in health at the moment and i struck a very puzzling situation.

    Marx, Parson ect all put the power in the doctors court and if you look at my grandparents generations they are right.

    med as confession, doctor as god ect all work exactly like that (for the most part) when only looking at them

    Yet when you look at the baby boomers, gen x and gen y you see a completely different picture. Its doctors as plumbers or sales assistants rather than gods.

    My parents, my self we all go into the doctor and say "x is whats wrong, now what are you going to do about it" and WE make the decision rather than the doctor. My mums oncologist even said exactly that to her, he said "treat me like you would a plumber, if you had concerns after having some work done by a plumber you would call them and question or complain, do the same to me"

    I don't think this is a bad thing in the least, the pt SHOULD have control over there own health care. however it is strange to see such a huge shift between the two generations and for the life of me i cant see why.

    One theory would be that its related to whitlams changes to university education which meant that my parents generation had a greatly increased knowledge and skills (in the sense of critically thinking) base from which to draw their own conclusions with regard to health care. However this cant account for why this attitude APEARS (at least to me) to be prevalent in other countries like the US, UK ect.

    Another theory could be its the proliferation of computers and computer knowledge, yet this change APEARS to precede the Internet as a widely available knowledge base which suggests that its not the cause but rather a facilitator
     
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  3. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    It wasn't just in medicine, it was a generalized loss of respect for authority. Older patients expect their doctor to tell them what to do, and older doctors expect to be listened to. I've worked with some older doctors and, compared to me, they are quite paternalistic. I recall an older doctor screaming at a patient that SHE MUST GET A BIFOCAL!!!! He argued for a long time getting quite upset at her reluctance. I, on the other hand, simply offer the patient a bifocal as a solution to the patient's problem. They are free to take my advice or not. I don't get worked up about the issue.
     
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  5. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    im wondering why it happened so suddenly. You dont really see any sort of jump like that in any area between the baby boomers and gen y for instance, yes gen y may be more tech savy but socially they are pritty close as a group and though i couldnt say for sure the same APEARS to be the case pre my grand parents era. Yet there is a HUGE disconect between the baby boomers and there parents.
     
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  7. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    The sixties, dude. It was a fucked up time. Everyone was on drugs. Don't trust anyone over 30 was the rule of the day. Free love. Rock and Roll. Riots. Race wars. Vietnam. It was a watershed event. The sixties radicals complete rejection of authority led to a general decrease in respect for authority ever since.
     
  8. Gypsi Registered Senior Member

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    I think you more or less answered your own question as to the change - attitude. Younger generations are so feeble in comparison to senior generations, who will often say if you're well enough to get to the doc's, you don't need one. Today people seem to think they have a right never ever to feel any pain or discomfort (however slight) and decide up front there's something that needs fixing - "and what are you going to do about it?" - even though numerous complaints are just that - complaints, not illnesses or conditions. People just suddenly got very spoilt, arrogant, disrespectful - and whiney.
     
  9. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    who the hell said i was talking about hitting your finger with a hammer?
    i was talking about cancer pts actually and the right they have to decide what happens to themselves. My grandmother has a benine tumor on her head which the surgen wanted to cut out so she said yes without even thinking of the other options (concidering its regrowing the doc is probably correct but thats beside the point). My mother on the other hand had breast cancer and SHE was the one making the decisions, it was HER choice to have the breast removed.

    Im a strong surporter of pt autonomy, i was just wondering where the hell it came from.
     
  10. Bells Staff Member

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    Your grandmother was expressing her autonomy by saying yes, just as your mother was expressing hers by "calling the shots with her treatment".
     
  11. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    true bells, however its the difference in aproch i was interested in. That being said, just because he was right this time doesnt always mean her doctor is and quite a few times he has been dead wrong. Im not going to go through all the times however putting an elderly women on strong narcotics to the point where she collapsed is NOT a smart move.
     
  12. The Breaker Registered Member

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    I disagree. Younger generations are more empowered than older generations. I believe that the internet has played a big role in the loss of respect for authority. People have a much greater access to all sorts of information. They are more able to make decisions on their own instead of just listening to what someone tells them. In my opinion a doctor is an employee which you have hired, no different than a plumber. If you dislike how he is treating you, you are free to fire him and hire a new doctor. Why should a person have to listen to someone else, simply because they are their elders?
     
  13. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    well i decided to ask mum what was so strange about her generation and her theory is that it has to do with education. Nan's generation and before only had primary level education and it was only after her that they even introduced high schools. Then we have the amount of people now who are going all the way through to year 12 at least or doing tertiary level education and you get this situation. Plus the treaching of science at schools lead to med being looked at as a science when can be (and is expected to be) understood by the lay people rather than almost magic like it was before that.

    You guys can decide if this is correct or incorect but either way im quite glad of the results. Pts SHOULD be the ones calling the shots not doctors and i really dont care if some of you think it is "disrespectful" its OUR health and not the doctors and we are the ones who have to most to lose or gain if the doctor is wrong or just doesnt take into acount quality of life vs quanity of life.

    BTW mad, when i told my sister (a qualifided physio i might add) your story her responce was that bifocals can be dangerious in the elderly anyway because they are associated with increased falls
     
  14. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Asguard, I can't help wondering if you're not over-generalizing? What you've seen in your own family and/or friends might not be true all over the world. Why did you make that giant leap of faith to include everyone in the "new generation"?

    Please note that I'm not agreeing or disagreeing ...I'm just wondering if you've studied this issue enough to make the statements that you've made in this thread.

    Baron Max
     
  15. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    i am generalising based on my family but also infomation obtained in lecturers and the apearance of health care access across the westen world. For instance the poliferation of drugs in the US (this is illegal here) directly marketed at the public rather than doctors. Previously where the doctor was the god of all health care this would have been counter productive because it was the doctor who was the market these needed to be aimed at. Further more the prevlance of health websites (again especially in the US) and diognostic websites aimed at lay people show that people are taking charge of there own health care

    Yes this is not direct resurch but it is strong acodotal and indirect effects, it shows little of the direct pt doctor relationship however your right.

    Oh just for your interest i was only making assumptions about the west in this, i have no idea of the prevlance of this in the east and its made further complicated in easten countries because they have a tendancy to have the head of the family control health care decisions rather than the person themselves
     
  16. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Any time "the people" take charge of anything, it usually turns to shit very rapidly. "The people" generally know so little about anything that to "take charge" is of anything is like sending wolves to guard the sheep!

    Yes, I'll stand by that ....people in general don't know shit about most anything ...yet they'll argue and protest and riot to get their way. They want to "take charge" of their own healthcare, yet if something goes wrong, they want the right to sue the shit outta' the doctors, hospitals and drug manufacturers!

    Humans suck giant donkey dick! ...and they're about that stupid!

    Baron Max
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The Baby Boomers were born immediately after WWII and grew up in its aftermath. They had to live with the results of their elders' decisions: the refugees and ruin from genocide and nuclear war for starters, but also the obvious and overdue payback for centuries of colonialism, aristocracy, racism, commercialism, puritanism and repression of women. It was impossible for them to respect people who had brought civilization down to that level. That was the "Generation Gap" of the 1960s, when the oldest Boomers began to reach adulthood. They felt that they couldn't do much worse by simply throwing out their parents' social structure and starting over.

    I'm a few years too old to be a Boomer, but there weren't enough of us War Babies to form a generation, so we had to choose to ally with the Depression Babies or the Boomers. I hung with the Boomers because they had better music. So I watched all this happen from the perspective of the "bemused slightly older guy along for the ride." I understand it. I was thoroughly disgusted with my parents too and let them die in estrangement.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What happened was that doctors themselves decided they were not Gods, and started to encourage patients to take an active part in their care, diagnosis, treatment, and related decisions. Doctors became less arrogant and more aware of their proper role, as facilitators.
     
  19. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Interesting, Fraggle, but don't you see that it's those very people who are now in positions of power and who are running things now .....and look what a mess we're in now. Does that not tell you anything about how righteous they were/are?

    Well, that certainly shows an interesting level of human compassion and tolerance, don't it.

    Baron Max
     
  20. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    I dunno. My parents are depression babies and they NEVER go to the doctor, smoke 1-2 packs a day and eat shitty food. In their 70s with never a major health problem.

    I think we(in general - not me) are just more dependent on Doctors now and they know us better than our own families sometimes. It's a little more personal perhaps cause we visit them so much more, cause basically everyone is running around lactose intolerant, peanut allergic, with asthma or cancer coming and going....etc etc.

    In short, we are becoming physically pathetic and dependent. Living longer, having multiple families of increasingly more physically pathetic dependents.
     
  21. Gypsi Registered Senior Member

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    There is no reason why age automatically entitles any one to respect. However, years and years of study and experience count for something more than a browse online. Furthermore every patient is different, impacting on the appropriateness of certain treatments, not to mention availability and/or cost considerations. Easily available information, online medical dictionaries et al, barely scrapes the surface of the big picture that the doctor (if not the patient) must evaluate - it certainly cannot advise (in light of this) what is appropriate for a specific patient. And anyway, it is quite ludicrous for anyone to believe that they really are better-informed than a doctor or consultant - and able to make decisions "on their own" as you say - on the basis of some hours of browsing. If they have read something that drives their treatment expectations or preferences in a certain direction, they should be discussed to ascertain why the doctor is not of the same mind, not demanded out of hand.

    Many doctors complain of patients arriving with a self-diagnosis and pre-set treatment expectations and unwilling to accept a different diagnosis and outcome. The most problematic situations - increasingly common - are ones where essentially the "illness" is self-limiting and rest, fluids etc., are all they can advise. Many doctors say they feel pressured to medicate (albeit with lotion or two) where medication is not necessary.

    So sure, the internet has made a difference and certainly it is valuable in terms of broadening basic understanding and discussion of treatment options but I feel it has had a negative impact too, in broadening the "opportunities" that many seek to distinguish themselves (or their children) through illnesses and allergies and syndromes and intolerances... so that they can moan on ad nauseum to friends and colleagues, make a big deal out of ordering food, get sympathy for how little Johnny's doing with his dreadful allergies...

    But of course you've got to make sure that you get the diagnosis and the treatment that makes all this possible.

    It's all so much indulgence, like triple-quilted toilet paper and mineral-enriched water. Really, people nowadays are not to my mind "empowered." They're spoilt and desperately in need of perspective, and totally incapable of determining between wants and needs.
     
  22. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    im sorry but thats just crap for any number of reasons

    Firstly doctors should be able to explaine the pro\cons of each treatment option in an impartial way, if they cant they shouldnt BE doctors. We dont even expect judges\coronors to be doctors, structural engineers, fire fighters ect yet we DO expect them to make recomendations based on the evidence presented which is put into a form someone with a law background can understand. Its very reasonable to expect that a doctor should be able to do the same to a pt.

    Next there is the issue that its YOUR body, no one has the right to do ANYTHING to your body without your consent. Lets look at another area where consent is important, would you say that its reasonable for a guy to say "i know that sex is good for you and i dont care what you say, there for i will rape you?"

    No its not

    Thirdly your assuming the only knowlage base used is either "THE DOCTOR" or the internet. This ignores a pts right to get a second opinion and it ignores the rolls of allied health care workers like nurse practitioners, paramedic practitioners, physios, mental health workers ect.

    In fact a survey found that less than 10% of people will go to see a doctor for a mental health complaint because they simply dont belive the doctor can help. They are right, few doctors are trained adquate levels of mental health and psycologists SHOULD be the front line health care workers for this.

    On your comment that people just want scripts, a study found that less than 50% of scripts written in australia are filled. There for its wrong to assume people just want antibotics. Actually the last time i was had an upper resp infection i had already taken nurifron before i went to the doc so he couldnt take a proper temp. There for his solution was to write a script as if it was a bacterial infection and leave me to check my temp in the morning when the drug had worn off so that i could get the meds if needed. Of course im trained to a far higher level than most people but thats beside the point
     
  23. draqon Banned Banned

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    I believe that this is a result of a loss of respect for authority, demoralization of society and only after this a result of proliferation of education to the masses, which allowed them to decide for themselves.
     

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