Article for Peds re: how to talk to us about vaccines - Page 2

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by Deborah

I see doctors as people with specialized knowledge and skills. When a doctor is courteous, patient, willing to answer questions and okay with letting the patient think things over and do their own research, great! I'm not about to do my own surgery, for example, but I wouldn't be happy with a doctor who tried to bully me into having surgery without allowing me time to figure out if I needed it.

I think pediatricians are a special class of doctors...

A lttle off topic, but pediatricians are not the only ones who fall victim to this mentality. When I worked in hand rehab, doctors never asked themselves if the person needs surgery. If they had a cut tendon, they got the surgery. It was never examined to see if the person can function in daily life without this particular tendon. The risks for the surgery (high adhesion rate and often need for secondary surgery) were never explained. Neither was the fact that you are in a cast for 6 weeks and only fully recovered after 12, making driving illegal for 6 weeks and a person partially functional for 12.
I really felt when I saw how little information patients were given and would when they woke up in a massive splint and I would explain to them why I am making a new splint and how to work it and "oh, no driving for 6 weeks, and only in 12 weeks can you fully use your hand."
The surgery exists. Many papers have been written. Why consider something as insignificant as whether it will actually improve the patients life? And what could a patient possibly know about the anatomy of their hand? We know, we will decide.

Bullying never really happened, but uninformed consent happens regularly. And if you questioned the surgeon, you were addressed as a complete idiot as what could you as a patient possibly know? ('upitty patients, bl**dy nightmare they are' as the doctor rolls her eyes)

[Deborah]

Yes, I guess you are right. Doctors (some of them) have a G*d complex. "We will decide what is right and let you know, eventually."

[xmasbaby7]

I do think it is one field the internet changed forever.

I can now access the same studies about peanut allergies, for example, that my ped can. I can read the same studies, notice contradictions in different studies, and conclude that many thoughts on peanut allergies are inconclusive, so why the heck would I take my doctor's word over my own parental instincts?

Before the internet, it was an unusual parent of an infant or toddler that went to the medical library for this same access to studies. Many parents had to trust the judgement of their peds because it was their only option.

If most of us didn't have access to the CDC stats and pink book so readily available, maybe we wouldn't have been as comfortable declining vaccines for our children?

[laohaire]

Uo

If the family has been traumatized by a diagnosis of autism that coincided with timing of the vaccine schedule, discuss the option of a customized vaccine schedule to avoid the peak diagnostic age for autism spectrum disorders.

Originally Posted by kidspiration

What?

Why would they suggest this, if it were absolutely, definitively established that vaccines do not cause autism? Creating a customized vaccine schedule would not be science-based, evidence-based practice if it were true that there was no link between vaccines and autism.

I might have misunderstood your post - but I think what they were trying to say is "Vaccines do not cause autism, the only link is coincidental timing, therefore if you have parents afraid of the vaccine-autism link, then create a customized schedule so that if the child exhibits symptoms of autism at the typical age for this to start, then you can say that it wasn't the vaccinations (since they were administered at a different time)."

I think that even someone who 100% believes there is no link can still see that there is concern about the link, and therefore adjusting the schedule to "disprove" the link would actually make sense in that case.

But that's just playing devil's advocate, I personally think that even someone without an M.D. can have understandable concern that injecting known neurotoxins into a developing child might result in neurological issues, regardless of whether that links has been fully proven or not.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by Deborah

Yes, I guess you are right. Doctors (some of them) have a G*d complex. "We will decide what is right and let you know, eventually."

And, if they made an error in judgement, at least they can say that they followed protocol. And hopefully learn for next time.... although not always.
To be fair, not every surgeon was like this, but many of them were.

[Turquesa]

This article poses two noteworthy questions:

1. How, oh how, will get these simpleton parents to see the Light?

. . . and . . .

2. Why, oh why, won't they trust Us?

The second has me laughing in stitches because the answer is right in front of her face . . . .in the form of a Rotateq commercial.

Are they just pretending that We the Simpletons are blind to all of the Pharma-related conflicts of interest? Or do they genuinely believe that we are?

[momto l&a]

Originally Posted by Deborah

What unvaccinated children? They have 99 9/10% been kicked out of the pediatrics practices. So, the family practice doctors and the osteopaths might be noticing something about unvaccinated children, but not the pediatricians.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak lots of evil.

Many healthy kids never even set foot inside a dr's office, maybe an ER from time to time for something serious but routine Dr appointments.... hardly.

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by momto l&a

Many healthy kids never even set foot inside a dr's office, maybe an ER from time to time for something serious but routine Dr appointments.... hardly.

Exactly. My healthy unvaxed 11 and 9 year olds have never been to a ped in their lives.

[tuffymommy0609]

There’s a big disconnect here, because
people in general, and even doctors, are
not particularly good at making decisions
when we’re given information in
SAT-like formulas.

If their concerns are based on faulty
logic or scientific confusion, remember
that their theory could make perfect
sense if you hadn’t studied microbiology,
immunology, physiology, and metabolism,
not to mention statistics.

Is it just me or do both of these comments bash on how incompetent parents are as well as doctors: That makes me "trust" my pediatrician even more!

[ericswifey27]

Oh dear...