Random Thoughts

Worse than anti-depressants are Ridilin, Adderoll and other amphetamines they pump into 12 year olds to make them pay attention.
 
Amphetamines can be quite effective if they're used right. The thing is we've started labeling kids who are a bit distracted as having ADHD, when really they are just kids. I know the NHS has a policy that medication must always be a last resort especially in children but I dunno what the American policy is.
 
Buy it if you can afford it and then pump the kids full of it so you don't have to deal with them.

I'm glad I never took any kind of prescription medication, I don't even take aspirin and I know I'm better off for it. I have friends who are chemically imbalanced now because of being on Adderoll or Anti-D's for a few years.

Medicine here is nothing more than a business, a hypocritical Hippocratic business.
 
:p as much stick as the NHS gets sometimes it is one of the best healthcare systems there is.
 
Don't know what doctors are like there but here they are just legal drug dealers. They don't really want to cure you, just sell you drugs. I have 0 respect for American doctors, they may be the best in the world but they are doctors for the wrong reasons.

Socialized medicine oh how I want thee

As Magz says, in the NHS it really doesn't work like that, if you go to the doctor with a chest infection, most times they'll just say "wait for your body to get rid of it", which is how it should be, you introduce more and more drugs to people they will become resistant to them when they actually need it. With organisations like NICE about as well, that helps in advocating new drugs, don't know if the US has anything similar, or as efficient, from everything I've heard and read, I doubt it.

The NHS may be a financial sieve (it's inevitable, really), but it's something I'm so proud of and has been there for me when I needed it.

it says a lot about modern society that anti-depressants are the single most prescribed medication, despite there being little true evidence of efficacy or even of them having any effect at all

They can be very mis-used, the problem is quite a lot of doctors, and as a generalisation I will say the older generation of doctors, who were only exposed to it during their careers, rather than being educated through it (if that makes sense) and will lump all depression together, it's incredibly varied and as with all mental health patients, they must be treated individually, unfortunately it doesn't always happen. In some instances AD's are essential to the rehabilitation, in other cases they are simply not needed. Some doctors are fantastic, others not so, we're still learning a hell of a lot about depression and we're seemingly getting closer to a society where it isn't a taboo.

It's getting better though, well, it'll take a step back during this government, but that's another issue.

You training to be a GP or other? Lot of dedication to go in to the medical world, good on ya.
 
mate of mine busted 12th in the largest live poker tournament ever held in britain.

500 pound buy in 1000 runners. 1st got 100k though so bit gutting if still epic.
 
As Magz says, in the NHS it really doesn't work like that, if you go to the doctor with a chest infection, most times they'll just say "wait for your body to get rid of it", which is how it should be, you introduce more and more drugs to people they will become resistant to them when they actually need it. With organisations like NICE about as well, that helps in advocating new drugs, don't know if the US has anything similar, or as efficient, from everything I've heard and read, I doubt it.

The NHS may be a financial sieve (it's inevitable, really), but it's something I'm so proud of and has been there for me when I needed it.



They can be very mis-used, the problem is quite a lot of doctors, and as a generalisation I will say the older generation of doctors, who were only exposed to it during their careers, rather than being educated through it (if that makes sense) and will lump all depression together, it's incredibly varied and as with all mental health patients, they must be treated individually, unfortunately it doesn't always happen. In some instances AD's are essential to the rehabilitation, in other cases they are simply not needed. Some doctors are fantastic, others not so, we're still learning a hell of a lot about depression and we're seemingly getting closer to a society where it isn't a taboo.

It's getting better though, well, it'll take a step back during this government, but that's another issue.

You training to be a GP or other? Lot of dedication to go in to the medical world, good on ya.

I'd quite like to be a psychiatrist but obviously it's still a good 10 years before I'll decide my specialty. It is a pretty hard road even at the start with all the hurdles you have to jump through to get to med school, then the intense workload you have to keep up for 5 or 6 years. It's a compelling profession though and one I'd be proud to be part of.
 
With organisations like NICE about as well, that helps in advocating new drugs, don't know if the US has anything similar, or as efficient, from everything I've heard and read, I doubt it.

I'm not too well versed in this subject, but NICE are a little controversial as well, are they not? When I was researching the effects of anti-cholinestrase inhibitors on patients with dementia for a paper for my elective, I came across a few articles that referred to NICE's decision to restrict them to only late-stage dementia in the UK ( when they're practically useless by that stage). From what I gathered, there was a huge out-cry from the majority of UK psychiatrists, who wanted it for early to mild stage. Don't know how much media-coverage this might have gotten, but it was a few years ago.

I do understand why NICE exists, but the fact they base most of their research on cost-effectiveness rather than clinical, the patient's best interest might not always be top priority. Understandable though, as the NHS doesn't have the money to provide everything. Just goes to show that there is no such thing as a perfect health system.
 
Just goes to show that there is no such thing as a perfect health system.

Not totally true imo, aslong as you have money to burn ie Michael douglas, then aslong as your illness isn't terminal then will have the best treatment money can buy, and you will be seen to asap.

Like michael douglas i see pictures of him looking like he was days from death, then within a few weeks he looks like he never had anything wrong, surely the fact he is mega loaded has a massive say on that outcome, cant see a regular person after the same time frame looking like that.
 
I agree that having loads of money = the best healthcare system for an individual. Just look at Magic Johnson, he's had HIV for almost 2 decades now and is still alive cause he can afford the preventative treatments that stop it from developing into full blown AIDS.
 
Not totally true imo, aslong as you have money to burn ie Michael douglas, then aslong as your illness isn't terminal then will have the best treatment money can buy, and you will be seen to asap.

Ofcourse, if you have the cash, then you can get anything you need. I was referring to healthcare systems avaliabe to the general public. Both the US and UK have their plus and minus points. The NHS only has certain avaliable treatments, and while they have been researched to be the most feasable ones, it doesn't guaranatee that you will still get the treatment you need, e.g. the dementia example I gave. On the other hand, it's free, which is the biggest plus any healthcare system can have.
 
I'm not too well versed in this subject, but NICE are a little controversial as well, are they not? When I was researching the effects of anti-cholinestrase inhibitors on patients with dementia for a paper for my elective, I came across a few articles that referred to NICE's decision to restrict them to only late-stage dementia in the UK ( when they're practically useless by that stage). From what I gathered, there was a huge out-cry from the majority of UK psychiatrists, who wanted it for early to mild stage. Don't know how much media-coverage this might have gotten, but it was a few years ago.

I do understand why NICE exists, but the fact they base most of their research on cost-effectiveness rather than clinical, the patient's best interest might not always be top priority. Understandable though, as the NHS doesn't have the money to provide everything. Just goes to show that there is no such thing as a perfect health system.

An organisation like NICE will always be controversial, I can't see that ever changing, it has to be.

Of course it would be perfect if we could give anyone, any drug, no matter the cost, but the system cannot work like that. I can't see how you could run a public system like a private system where you get what you want. This is where a lot of the anger comes from within the public, the lack of understanding of how it must work.

At the risk of forming an opinion on a subject I know little about, the anti-cholinestrase inhibitors work by helping the neurotransmitters last longer, don't they? Dementia is, unfortunately (at the moment, anyway) something that isn't reversible, you can of course improve quality of life for a period of time. This is the moral dilemma NICE have, do you allow a drug which costs ?20k per patient, to improve quality of life for, say a year, or ?20k to a patient who could actually save their life and rid them of that disease.

It'd be interesting read in to more detail those reports and the results of those drugs in trials.

It's a horrible situation, I'd call it a necessary evil. I'd hate to be those at NICE who make those kind of decisions and of course they may make the wrong calls at times, but the general feeling of people I know in the medical profession is that they do a good job.
 

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