Lots of people go to school for 7 years...

...they're called doctors. And they're still dumb as a fucking doorknob.

My wife and I recently got back from an out of country vacation. We do that sometimes, since traveling is the best way to educate yourself and learn about the world. That is, for those of us who actually give a shit about it.

As sometimes happens, we picked up a bug that left us violently ill. Probably from some sushi. We're adventurous like that. She got over it rather quickly. I suffered a little longer, Definitely longer than I needed to. At one point I laid down, shaking uncontrollably, in our hotel room after heaving my colon through my esophagus and thought that this was the end. I'm was coming to terms with the fact that I was going to die in a tiny pink room to the sound of techno, creaking wooden steps, & moronic opinions coming from CNN.

Much to my surprise, I woke up the next morning, relatively alive, and we managed to get ourselves home the following day.

After the dysentery kicked in we figured a trip to the doctor was necessary so we went to an Urgent Care center at 7 pm on a Saturday night. I spent about 20 minutes with a nice nurse who took all of my info and she wrote down anything we had a remote feeling was relevant to my health. I was home. Being cared for. Comfortable (aside from the whole rectal bleed thing).

About 30 minutes later, a doctor came in asking "what's wrong?"

No file was in her hand. This through me off - so I didn't know where to begin.

I gave her some sparse details and she rattled off some drugs I'd have to take while they ran some tests, of which would take a few days to run.

An hour or 2 later we paid, left and went home with my prescriptions in hand, to worry ourselves through the night. The next morning I got my drugs, took the ones that would let me drink (I'm not one to restrict my diet when I don't have a good factual reason to), and went through my day, persistently calling every couple hours to get my test results as they came in.

2 days later, after all tests were run, I'm dizzy, lethargic, hungry, and living in a steady state akin to an out-of-body experience. And I still have the shits.

Still, nobody could give me a good reason to start taking the drugs I couldn't drink on, so I put those in the cabinet and kept up with the antibiotics. After 2 more days of drooling over my keyboard at work, too stoned to even drive myself home, I called my regular doc who told me to keep up with the drugs until they were all gone. And to take the other ones. The shits continued.

Fuck that.

I went home, put the drugs away, and got drunk.

After 2 days of being drug free the dizzyness went away and the shits stopped. The fog had lifted so I looked up side effects of the drugs I was taking. "May cause drowsiness." No shit.

Lo and behold, after a little Google time (like, 3 seconds) the same drug may cause the shits.

So let me get this straight: we have an industry of health care professionals, recommending a drug whose side effects worsen the pain of people who are already bleeding out their ass. Then when the patient complains the drugs are making it worse, you tell them to shut the fuck up, dose up, and call if there's any change.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

I pay my insurance out of pocket, plus a deductible and co-pay, for all these people to develop and run tests, develop and sell drugs, scare the shit out of my wife and I, all while an industry spends billions of dollars on research and education. And not only can you tell me NOTHING about what's eating away at my insides, but at the end of the day I would have been better off, both financially and health-wise, had I stayed at home that night and quietly bled out of my ass.

What scares me the most: What the fuck do you inefficient geeks do when someone is really sick?