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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 12/9/06, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> ...But would say this:  people going along with some really invasive
> treatment just because the doctor said so (putting their brain in park, as you
> say) is a function of indoctrination which they picked up in their government
> school sojourn.

That seems to me an assertion without hard proof. I work with a bunch
of middle-aged women, most of whom are beginning to have encounters
with doctors, drugs, and surgery through accidents (falling on the ice
and breaking something is common), being female, etc. This is not a
bunch that does anything their doctors suggest without a full
explanation. Most of them also not only went to public schools but
taught in them (at one time one of the requiriements for working in
the division was having been a K-12 teacher). I'd guess that accepting
doctors as ultimate authority figures has more to do with personality
than schooling, and it's my opinion, FWIW, that personality formation
has more to do with genetics and the first 5 or 6 years of life than
with whatever happens later. Those of you who are parents or who have
watched children develop form birth know that they're born with an
attitude toward life.
> The person I mentioned who died from the radiation treatment for his lung
> cancer, when I asked him which type of cancer he had, he said he didn't know.

That attitude appalls me. How did that man not learn long ago that the
only one who cares about your life is you (and maybe your dependents,
if you aren't too wealthy).   :)

> When Denise was pregnant with our first, a coworker of hers was also pregnant
> and was very fearful of delivery, especially of enduring preclampsia.  Denise
> showed her the documentation that preclampsia is a function of protein
> deficiency .....
> She brushed it aside and said there was no reason to consider it nor mention
> it to the OB, if there were anything to it, the OB would have volunteered it
> on his own.
It seems to me that in the years since that incident, patients have
taken advantage of information widely available, and doctors have been
willing to look at new research, but -- you're right -- that woman's
attitude is still with us. You can think of it as a natural culling of
the gene pool.
> Government school conditioning works to dissociate our involvement in such
> decisions and place blind total trust in 'experts'.  Don't get me wrong, when
> there' s an important decision to be made, I consult the experts, but only 
> from
> a standpoint of informed inquiry.

That's one theory. I'm more inclined that people get their attitudes
from their parents and the media.

Marie