I suppose I'm one that liked the way your GP diagnosed issues back when I was younger,
He would listen to your chest, press here, feel there, ask you "does that hurt" etc and at the end give you his professional diagnosis and usually a script.
Now it's 3 mins max, a few questions, google and take this to the chemist.
Medicine has changed in most of the world, it seems, from a "human service" to an assembly line.
I am certain I have mentioned that after I had been in IT full-time for a bit over a decade I was burned out and decided to do a 180-degree career change. I went back to graduate school and got my master's in speech and language pathology. I went on to work in a school for special needs kids (as an assistive technology specialist) and then as a cognitive rehabilitation therapist in a brain injury services program at a vocational rehabilitation center. In the latter position, the clients I was seeing were all well beyond the acute stage of injury, so therapy was not considered (and appropriately so) medically necessary, but was necessary to set up compensatory systems so the individuals might be able to work and otherwise manage aspects of their lives. I liked both of these positions because my clinical judgment was what dictated the course of treatment, as well as its duration. None of this was controlled by what insurance would or would not cover.
One of the main reasons I am no longer in clinical practice is that the insurance companies are entirely in charge of the medical industry here in the United States for all practical intents and purposes. In the case of most patients I would be seeing, were I still seeing them, in the post-acute phase, treatment that would have any real and meaningful effect for them would generally be a months-long process. If you can get even six weeks these days, and not daily treatment, either, you can consider yourself very, very lucky. And if you are unfortunate enough to work in a skilled nursing facility, you're constantly being asked to screen clients that everyone knows are inappropriate for further treatment and to add them to your caseload. Then, in the case of my profession, you cannot bill for any time that is not face-to-face with the client, and when you're doing evaluations the testing part of those, which is the only part you do face-to-face, takes minimal time. Scoring and interpretation of the results, treatment planning, etc., are not billable. Even for treatments, a very great many are doing their paperwork for their last session with their last client while trying to work with the current one. It's insane, and it's wrong.
I knew I couldn't be a part of "assembly line" medicine. I have no regrets for dropping out, or I'd have lost both my soul and my sanity.
