Comments on: Deep Thoughts: Sabermetrics and my annual checkup

By: JB (the original)

JB (the original) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:41:19 +0000

There are good and bad guys in every walk of life. In medicine some are in it for the love of helping people, others are in it for the money–just like baseball, some just want to play, some just want to be paid.. I wasn’t trying to disparage any one person/doctor, more an indictment of the system at large.

By: raysfan1

raysfan1 — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:42:35 +0000

I like money, therefore I support a true universal healthcare system. Obamacare is not a true universal healthcare system as there will still be millions of uninsured Americans. Our healthcare expenditures are roughly 17% of our GDP. Great Britain, which has a private healthcare option, spends about 11% of its GDP on healthcare.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:36:11 +0000

Dammit, leeches have to eat too!

By: raysfan1

raysfan1 — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:33:15 +0000

Can’t speak for others on how much time they spend with patients. I see 20-25 a day on average, about 1 every 15 minutes. Regardless, I start with an open-ended question, let the person talk without interrupting and at the end make sure they have no questions.

Recently, the number of doctors who are employees rather than in private practice surpassed 50%. I am one of those, meaning I get paid a salary–how many patients I see does not change that.

Most conferences are still in nice places in nice hotels. Attendance is much better that way. Pharmaceutical reps do show up too, as do medical textbook publishers and equipment manufacturers. However, every scholarly paper or research presentation has mandatory disclosure of any connection to them. My hotel bill and travel costs and food are my own.

By: indaburg

indaburg — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:28:58 +0000

I hear you, stlouis. Red meat and beer does a lot of us in. In unclemoses’s original post about oatmeal, the word that stood out to me in his first sentence was “ribs”… St. Louis style, Texas style, Carolina style, Oklahoma style (gotta shout out my girl, ‘philiac)… I don’t discriminate. I love me some bbq. What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah, oatmeal… it’s good for you…

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 23:33:01 +0000

Use the Canadian stuff, man. Its full of Beavery-goodness.

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 23:27:08 +0000

I was away all day learning about cluster infections and case control studies (among other things). I can see I missed NOTHING important on HBT.

By: chacochicken

chacochicken — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 23:14:54 +0000

They lived long remarkably healthy lives compared to modern agriculturalists. Our big advantage is advanced medicine and antibiotics. The food has gotten worse.

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:11:22 +0000

Thanks for the advice Inda. Very helpful. I do eat a lot of oatmeal. But the pre-packaged maple and brown sugar kind. I know it isn’t the greatest for you. Sometimes I go overboard and put honey on it as well. LOL! I am pre-diabetic. My two buddies who are Doc’s and my Mother-in-Law (the NP) do a great job of staying on my ass. As well as the Wife (she’s a nurse).
I need to lose about 30 lbs. Blood pressure has always been great. But the red meat and beer is what the primary issue seems to be.
From what I am told…
Once you are on Met Formin…it’s a forgone conclusion that you typically stay on it and the actual diabetes ultimately follow’s suite. But I am gonna do my best to squelch that noise.
My Wife and Mother-in-law tell me I am taking the medicine of an overweight geriatric.
Yeah…fun stuff!

By: bla bla bla

bla bla bla — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:03:28 +0000

Change it to Florio getting sodomized and you might end up with an HBO special.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:53:32 +0000

Yeah, the cost of health care in the US has absolutely nothing to do with any current proposed health care system….it is all about a few companies reaming everyone else via unjustified health care costs. In the US, nearly 20% of the GNP is spend on health care….there is no way that is reasonable. Somebody is making out like a bandit, and I doubt it is anyone that has been to med school.

By: indaburg

indaburg — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:51:43 +0000

No, no! Keep eating the oatmeal! It’s a wonderful food. Drizzle a little 100% pure maple syrup in it for variety. I saw that you take metformin (ouch). There’s been a lot of research the benefits of maple syrup for diabetics (but of course, check with your doc first). Use the real stuff, not that Aunt Jemima mixture of toxins.

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:36:32 +0000

Fair enough Brah’. I wondered where you went. Busy thus far huh?

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:35:31 +0000

“But I guess that’s what happens when you triple book patients to make up for the reduced insurance payouts…”

On point! This is also part of what I was referring to previously.
But…shhhhh! If we don’t discuss it people might forget about it.

By: JB (the original)

JB (the original) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:26:45 +0000

Things have changed in recent years inasmuch as Big Pharm cannot provide the niceties they once did (ever wonder why all the conferences were in Hawaii or Phoenix in the winter time?). Personal observation and from others I’ve talked to that go in and have poor numbers (mine are fine) typically see “the doctor” for less than 5 minutes and the scrips are written up as fast as they can sign them with no talk of “diet” and “exercise”. But I guess that’s what happens when you triple book patients to make up for the reduced insurance payouts…

By: El Bravo

El Bravo — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:25:11 +0000

Close enough not to argue…hahahaha. I’m trollin’. Haven’t been posting in awhile. Busy 2013.

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:18:37 +0000

Darn it! Thanks for the clarification Inda.
Not only am I wrong about Obama (the sun apparently does rise and set in his ass)…
I am wrong about “floaties.” LOL! I am going to ease off the oatmeal for a while.

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:15:27 +0000

Easy Bravo. I have two very good friends who are family Doc’s and we discuss it all the time.
My Mother-in-Law is a Nurse Practioner and we also discuss it frequently.
My buddies are conservative…my Mother-in-Law is a liberal. And they all agree it is going to have a terrible affect on their bottom lines.
In a nutshell…they have been getting reimbursed less and less over the last 10 – 15 years as it is.
It’s only going to get much worse.
But I understand where you are coming from.
Any type of negative comment(s) whatsoever against our feerless leader is blasphemy.
You just can NOT disagree with anything. You simply must conform
While we are at it…we must kneel down as well.
Amiclose?

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:08:21 +0000

Yeah…you take it with a grain of salt Stiller.
I know it was funny…you know it was funny.
And that’s good enough for me.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:59:09 +0000

The point is that LDL-P is a far better indicator of heart health than LDL-C…..just like WAR (no matter which version you use) is a far better indicator of productivity than RBI, BA, ERA, or pitcher wins.

Each version of WAR is calculated perfectly, just like LDL-P is calculated accurately for a given sample, but LDL-P is probably less correlated with heart health than WAR is to baseball productivity because WAR uses far more of the necessary variables to do the job than LDL-P does.

By: El Bravo

El Bravo — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:57:48 +0000

way to sneak in obamacare haterism in there. the short answer is the system will cost less than not having the affordable care act in place once it takes full effect, despite what the family doc says. it will has already insured millions more people as well. not sure you can hate on that.

By: indaburg

indaburg — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:57:23 +0000

Lots of scatology on HBT these days. First, Lawrie and his plane farts, and now this.

Normal stools usually sink. Floaters are typically harmless but can sometimes be related to nutritional malabsorption or gassiness. Whoever farted on the Jays’ flight probably has floaters. A sudden increase of fiber into the diet can also cause gassiness, so there could be a correlation there between fiber, farts, and floaters.

The more you know…

By: Ari Collins

Ari Collins — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:56:36 +0000

WAR has, like, three different ways to measure it, and the only difference is whose defensive metrics they use. Which aren’t subjective, they’re just measuring different things. And I don’t think anyone’s changed their measurement ever, let alone just about every year.

To go back to Craig’s analogy, it’s like you’re saying that since there are two different LDLs, and they measure different things, they must both be worthless. I mean, why can’t the medical establishment agree on one single measure of all health ever?!

By: Stiller43

Stiller43 — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:55:48 +0000

Wait, how does this comment have so many thumbs down? Is this crowd that mature that they cant take a little craig getting sodomized humor?

By: El Bravo

El Bravo — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:54:37 +0000

“Science and math is science and math no matter what you apply it to. If people in any other field besides baseball treated scientific and mathematical metrics with the sort of willfully ignorant disdain that many baseball writers treat advanced baseball metrics, they’d be laughingstocks.”

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, have you ever heard arguments against climate change? How about evolution? They SHOULD be laughingstocks, but alas, dumb f@cks get to rail against facts and science all the time in the mainstream media.

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:36:40 +0000

Absolutely Raysfan. I have a couple of friends who are family practitioners and they bemoan this sort of thinking as well. They also bemoan the impending costs that Obamacare is going to have on family Doc’s.

By: indaburg

indaburg — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:28:26 +0000

Sigh… Deadliest, no dealiest.

By: indaburg

indaburg — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:21:46 +0000

Even those substances you mentioned (except for iocane, which is one of the dealiest substances known to man) aren’t just bad. In the ER, I’ve applied cocaine to patients’ nostrils for to stop extreme nose bleeds. It’s very effective since it’s a potent vasoconstrictor. Heroin, being an opioid, is a very effective analgesic. In the UK, it’s actually legal to administer under strict guidelines. Even good ol’ arsenic is being researched as a potential cancer treatment.

You’re right though. Moderation is the key. It’s just so… boring. Moderation itself should also be practiced in moderation.

By: raysfan1

raysfan1 — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:13:01 +0000

@JB–
Your assertions about there being some sort of medical provider and “Big Pharm” conspiracy is almost as laughable as it is insulting. I’ve practiced medicine for over 20 years and here is the total pay out I have received from drug companies: $0.00. Likewise, the only doctors I know who do receive money from drug companies happen to be directly employed by them. We take ethics very seriously.

The reason hypertension and hyperlipidemia are defined more strictly than in the past is simple, namely that scientific studies have consistently shown that lowering levels further to the current definitions prevents heart attacks and strokes.

By: dawgpoundmember

dawgpoundmember — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:08:00 +0000

whoa craig! so your doctor said your stats are not what they use to be, did he offer you some new pill or something that will help you recover from the treadmill runs and what nots?