Annual cancer screening

[JPWH 6,525]

I recently had blood work, MRI, and a colonoscopy. Test results all came back good. No cancer. Next blood scan will be the end of December. 

[ebinmaine 73,906]

Niiiiice 

[Achto 29,599]

Great news !!!

[pfrederi 18,839]

Great!!!

[Pullstart 67,544]

[stevasaurus 23,378]

Jay...    Me too so far !  

[Mickwhitt 5,172]

We get bowel cancer screening here every two years, just done my poo test.

 

Seems we are having a few problems though. A young lady died recently after complaining of pains, weakness, weight loss etc. To be told by 7 different doctors she was too young to have cancer. By the time she collapsed and was rushed in to hospital she only lived for three weeks. Another young woman complained of pain in her tummy and feeling full after only a mouthful of food. She had ovarian cancer and had a tumour the size of a soccer ball removed. They both presented with classic symptoms and not one doctor picked up on them. What is happening when this happens? Doctors not listening to patients. Both ladies knew there was something wrong and they were ignored. 

My brother has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer at 63. He complained for months about joint pain, weight loss and tiredness. When they eventually did a 50 quid blood test the thing had spread to his bones, so he's basically had it. 

Something wrong when out doctors are making these kinds of errors so often. 

[953 nut 61,288]

1 hour ago, Mickwhitt said:

To be told by 7 different doctors she was too young to have cancer.

It is likely that the insurance regulations wouldn't pay for proper testing. We have the same thing happening here in the states, many tests won't be performed until the proper age is reached.

[Mickwhitt 5,172]

8 hours ago, 953 nut said:

many tests won't be performed until the proper age is reached.

We have a big scare here about prostate cancer in men. We are told to get tested by tv ads and stars who have got it. You go to your doctor and they say you can't have a test because your not old enough.

The girl with the huge tumour just needed her belly pressing to see what was going on. 

We dont pay health insurance like you guys, we pay national insurance that funds the NHS.

Remember we have a general practice surgery that looks after you. Maybe a few doctors in that practice. You hardly see a doctor as nurses have been brought in to ease their workload. So it's no wonder things get missed. We can only be referred on to an NHS  hospital for further tests. We dont have the wide choice of doctors you guys seem to do. 

 

[Handy Don 14,396]

5 hours ago, Mickwhitt said:

We dont have the wide choice of doctors you guys seem to do. 

Looks can be deceiving. The grass is not always greener.

In huge areas of the US, the doctor/patient ratio is very low. Even in my area, the increasing degree of specialization plus retirements is depleting the ranks of general practitioners. I get it--medicine has become mind-bendingly complicated. Further, hospitals are increasingly owned by large organizations and are hiring “staff” residents (junior doctors) and attendings (consultants) instead of granting admitting privileges to individual qualified doctors which widens their revenue stream.

Some health insurance plans do permit self-referral to specialists, but many require an “in plan" primary care physician or nurse practitioner to make the referral. Referral grantors at the insurer have been trained people, but machine learning is creeping in at the edges to “assist."

Recent years have seen big growth in “Urgent Care” storefront setups--a.k.a. doc-in-a-box. Usually staffed by a nurse practitioner or physician assistant plus nurse support and with decent technology (x-ray, blood testing, etc.), they skim most of the minor, walk-in injury that previously went to (frightfully expensive) emergency rooms (A&Es). 

And lastly, there are millions of people here who are without health care of any kind. 

[Mickwhitt 5,172]

Don you provide a lot of information that isn't in the public domain over here. To us it looks like you guys can get referred to any number of specialists for tests when over here it's tough to even see your GP.

 

We are setting up clinics in high street stores now too. Hospitals have just become so big and unwieldy, you can't even access many of them by car because they have built on all the parking spaces. We used to have smaller community Hospitals but they disappeared for the mega general Hospitals that deal with everything. 

 

Go to any emergency room or as we call them accident and emergency and you will see people presenting with such minor injury or illness that should and would have been dealt with either by self care or your GP, but ignorant people who demand to be treated are clogging the system up. If they had to pay they'd stick an ice pack on it themselves.  

 

And we are being overwhelmed by asylum seekers arriving here unchecked. The first thing they do is register with a GP for free health care, and get free taxi transport to get them there. That's why they all want to come to the UK, it's easy money. 1000 a day and rising are arriving all wanting free accommodation, health care and employment.  No wonder the money is running out.