r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 2d ago
Psychology Democrats are more likely to trust their personal doctors and follow their doctors’ advice than Republicans, new research finds. The study found that Republicans and Democrats shared a trust in their doctors until 2020, when Democrats began to show more trust in their doctors than Republicans.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/10794891.8k
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u/Khaldara 2d ago
Man, if only Marty and Doc Brown could use the DeLorean to teach Reagan’s mom to appreciate butt stuff it’d positively alter the course of human history immeasurably
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u/VanMisanthrope 2d ago
I'm wondering if the whole "keep a separate bag of
bloodspecially mixed sea water" in your chest thing was a mistake10
u/Highskyline 2d ago
Multicellularity is heavily overrated.
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u/Mazzaroppi 2d ago
Placing the genetic material in a nucleus was a big mistake
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u/Regniwekim2099 2d ago
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
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u/MarshyHope 2d ago
And it was found Gore would have won the Florida recount.
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u/triedpooponlysartred 2d ago
If I am remembering correctly, he would not have won the recount in the specific places they were challenging. He would have won a full state recount but under the name of 'decorum' or whatever justification is used to make Democrats maintain status quo I am pretty sure it wasn't going to change the results.
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u/InYourBunnyHole 2d ago
The argument Gore was making before the Supreme Court would've actually given Bush the highest possible margin of victory. Gore's only chance to win would have been to push for all under & overvotes to be counted, something he never once pursued.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/politics/bush-gore-2000-election-results-studies/index.html
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u/Tinytrauma 2d ago
I do really have to wonder what the world would look like today of the 2000 election turned out differently. How does 9/11 play out? How does climate change get addressed? Do we become an EV powerhouse? The butterfly effect would be fascinating I would think.
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u/Thunderplant 2d ago
Gore actually took climate change seriously too. Imagine the world we could be living in if we'd started taking that seriously in the early 2000s
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u/Valuable-Painter3887 2d ago
The Ozone layer has been steadily healing the past couple decades and is on track to be considered fully healed in 2066. Imagine if we had gore who kicked off climate change legislation early on, and didn't have to sit around on the issue? Would the hole be closed 8 years sooner? would it be closed 16 years sooner because the US could assert climate change policies on other countries? Would it have already been healed by now?
It's a shame that regressionists had to take charge again and prevent us from progressing forwards
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u/fuzzbeebs 2d ago
Gore got shafted by the state of Florida. Bush's brother was the governor, and his Florida campaign co-chair was the secretary of state. She was the one that ordered the end to the recounts. The Supreme Court ultimately sided with her.
However, Bush probably would've won the recounts. The biggest issue was the ballots themselves. The candidates were listed in two columns on the ballot with a hole punch in the middle. So on the left side, Bush was first, Gore was right below him, but the second punch was for Pat Buchanan. Just 3% of the Buchanan votes would have made the difference.
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u/LostWoodsInTheField 2d ago
Look if Al Gore didn't get shafted by the media
Everyone is blaming different people for this but I find it interesting that Roger Stone hasn't been named. He ran a planned riot to slow/stop the recount that mattered the most. It went over it's time span and the state / courts decided it couldn't continue.
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u/seedless0 2d ago
And this is just the Republicans that actually see doctors. I wonder what are the numbers between the 2 parties.
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 2d ago
I think the rest of them just forward Facebook videos by that weird balding doctor pushing conspiracy theories. That guy's an expert on everything, but he'll stay on the internet because he's a little too spastic for live camera.
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u/Taoistandroid 1d ago
I've read one analysis that said the whole wine is good for your heart thing could be chocked up to the difference in medical compliance between the UK and France. French men were far more likely to comply with their doctor's orders to take meds for things like hypertension, while men in the UK were far more likely to avoid their doctors orders. French men for the period reviewed lived an average of a decade or so longer.
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u/34TH_ST_BROADWAY 2d ago
People started peer reviewing each other, handing out honorary medical degrees to each other after the proper level of "own research" had been completed.
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u/SynthwaveSax 2d ago
Didn’t stop them from turning to said doctors when they got past the point of no return.
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u/everett640 2d ago
They were told to inject disinfectant and were appalled when their doctors told them not to. They heard it from a "trustworthy" source
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u/GOPequalsSubmissive 2d ago
Republicans have always been deeply enslaved weaklings, but they were activated into foot soldiers to help kill innocent people on behalf of rich Christians in 2020.
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u/themarajade1 2d ago
It went from just trusting doctors to dems, “I know nothing about this field so I will lean on the experts to guide me,” and reps “I know nothing about this field therefore I trust no one”
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u/entwenthence 2d ago
You’re being too generous. They’re poisoning their kids with vitamin A and having measles parties. They trust their misinformation.
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u/PloppyPants9000 2d ago
“My body, my choice!” when it comes to vaccines, but not when it comes to pregnancy and abortions…
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u/lordlaneus 2d ago
Well yeah, they believe in fetal person-hood. It's frustrating, but not actually a contradiction in the ideology. I side with that one Fulton County judge, if the state is going to claim that a fetus' right to life, out weights a woman's right to bodily autonomy, then the state must take responsibility for the fetus after it's born. In the absence of robust public child support, and/or freely available contraception, a blanket abortion ban is an unconscionable.
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u/yashdes 1d ago
Nothing is unconscionable when your sense of morality comes from a book instead of, y'know, caring about people and thinking about the consequences of the arbitrary determinations we make
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u/lordlaneus 1d ago
their sense of morality is shaped by the book, but it doesn't come from there. Otherwise Christians wouldn't be insisting that the Bible doesn't condone slavery.
But infinite rewards and punishments do tend to muck up moral calculations.
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u/TheGummiVenusDeMilo 1d ago
Very little punishment when you can death bed confession to salvation because their God is all forgiving for them and their loved ones.
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u/lordlaneus 1d ago edited 1d ago
the exact criteria for salvation are fuzzy, and vary from christian to christian, but they generally believe that the majority of humans will be damned to hell.
edit: but also a lot of Christian believe in annihilation theory, where the souls of the damned are just completely destroyed, an punishment comes from being eternally separated from God
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u/Archer007 1d ago
Well yeah, they believe in fetal person-hood.
No they don't. They believe in controlling women
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u/lordlaneus 1d ago
I think we're talking about different "they"s
Republican politicians are mostly just, dishonest, power hungry opportunists. But that's also most politicians in general. A lot of the laws banning abortion seem deliberately crafted to interfere with women's reproductive rights. It's insidious and should be publicly called out.
But for a lot of people, abortion is just a straightforward issue of "killing babies is bad."
There's also another large overlapping group of people who support draconian abortion measures because they think women who accidentally get pregnant, deserve to be punished. Screw that group aswell.
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u/Dwayne_Gertzky 1d ago
But for a lot of people, abortion is just a straightforward issue of "killing babies is bad”
I would say at even 90%-95% don’t actually believe this so devoutly if you can get them to enter into an honest, good faith discussion about it. I’ll use my mother in law as an example. She is anti-abortion and cites her catholic belief that life begins at conception. In fact, the 2024 election was her first time voting for a Democrat because she has largely been a single issue voter (abortion).
My wife started discussing abortion rights with her after Roe fell, and her beliefs have slowly shifted from “life begins at conception, end of story” to “while I strongly oppose abortion, in cases of rape I think it is awful but understandable.”
If a person can be convinced to support any exceptions for abortion, then deep in their psyche, in a place they don’t want to acknowledge exists, they know a clump of cells is nothing more than the potential for life, and absolutely is not yet a human baby. Either that, or they can be convinced it’s okay to kill some babies.
Only the most extreme anti-abortion people are true believers. The vast majority have just been socially pressured to believe something so they fit in.
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u/pinksparklyreddit 1d ago
Everyone wants to believe that they're smart and that they have some kind of special information that no one else has.
The problem arises when those people are actually dumb.
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u/ClarkKentsSquidDong 1d ago
And they trust their misinformation specifically because it's labeled as misinformation.
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u/Paranitis 2d ago
It's less "I know nothing about this field, therefor I trust no one" and more "I know nothing about this field, but I know someone who seems confident enough about some kind of field that I will trust them with my life."
It's like taking medical advice from a cop or law advice from a doctor. They know something about something, therefor I trust they know more than me about everything.
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u/ItsFuckingScience 1d ago
I think it’s more like “I know more than the so called experts in this field”
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u/FearTheLorax 2d ago
The Republicans have always been people where if the facts align with their world view(they rarely do) then facts don't care about your feelings. For everything else it's use "common sense", "do your own research" which consists of fox or Facebook. Most notably see climate change and trickle down economics before covid.
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u/CrownLikeAGravestone 2d ago
There's been studies on the types of information that people trust segmented by political affiliation (which I won't cite, on my phone, sorry) - the findings were that progressives were significantly more comfortable with uncertainty, complexity, fluid concepts, abstractions; conservatives preferred concretions, static and binary answers, simpler explanations.
I'm hesitant to say that either approach is categorically worse, but the "simple common sense" approach certainly falls flat when the reality actually is complex.
Gender/sex/sexuality is a good example. What you were taught in grade 3 biology wasn't the whole truth and our best understanding of the issues has evolved since then. The answers are inherently complex and telling someone "go read Judith Butler plus this published research paper" just doesn't help.
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u/CrashCalamity 1d ago
conservatives preferred concretions, static and binary answers, simpler explanations.
That's a very polite way to call them stupid.
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u/asshat123 1d ago
I'll be honest, if anyone's argument relies on appeals to "common sense", I dismiss them and their argument pretty quickly. Common sense doesn't exist
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u/Oregon_Jones111 2d ago
Most notably see climate change and trickle down economics before covid.
Conservative misinformation consistently allows people to ignore the well being of others and pretend they’re not selfish.
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u/ILikeLimericksALot 1d ago
The issue is, I think, the lack of 100% Yes or No answers in the majority of medical science. A certain demographic wants the answer to be first and foremost simple and easy. I don't want to think about the news I want to consume it wholesale.
For example "Can vaccines hurt my child?". We all know that a full round of vaccinations will massively increase your (and other) children's likelihood of surviving to adulthood. However, the answer to the question, technically, is "Yes, it is possible in very rare cases that a vaccine could harm your child".
Couple this with lazy or dishonest reporting and you get "Vaccines killing children" on Facebook, Fox and wherever else news, because that's a soundbite we can all understand and share without having to think about a difficult answer.
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u/TheLastFreeMan 2d ago
"The doctors are all lying to you. The bald middle school dropout on youtube is the only man you can trust."
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u/Oregon_Jones111 2d ago
They resented being told to care about other people, so they denied reality so they could pretend they’re not profoundly selfish.
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u/MyFiteSong 2d ago
reps “I know nothing about this field therefore I trust no one”
That's not true. They trust social media influencers.
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u/iiJokerzace 1d ago
They trust other sources that simply confirm their personal opinion. Truth is a massive inconvenience to them.
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u/thomasrat1 2d ago
When I was a kid, being anti vax was a more left leaning ideology.
Like out of the many antivaxers I knew, most were left leaning.
It’s just crazy how that changed so quickly,
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u/sansjoy 2d ago
left leaning like hippy dippy organic people?
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u/Thunderplant 2d ago
That was my experience, yeah. I'm going to be at risk of shingles the rest of my life because my mom fell into that crowd while working at an organic co-op when I was small
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u/Soupre 2d ago
Bro I've had shingles twice and I'm not even 35 yet. It sucks
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u/Thunderplant 1d ago
Oof yeah see this is why the shingles vaccine alone does not make up for it. I'm slightly immunocompromised and wouldn't be surprised if this happens to me as well
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u/lilmonkie 2d ago edited 2d ago
You can still get a chicken pox vaccine as an adult in the US if you really wanted to.
Edit to add: you're actually at a higher risk of shingles if you've had chicken pox previously since Shingles is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus. If not vaccinated against the chicken pox, then you're still at risk of contracting chicken pox, even as an adult.
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u/enraged768 2d ago
How old are you? I was born in the 80s and common knowledge at the time was to get your children infected early. I mean it sucks that there's a vaccine now. But at the time I think most people in the us had chicken pox playtime.
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u/Thunderplant 1d ago
I'm 30, the vaccine was available before I was born, but my parents refused all my early childhood vaccinations and deliberately infected me with chickenpox for the same reason you said :(
I did get vaccinated eventually but it was too late on that front obviously
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u/RCrumbDeviant 2d ago
Personal experience: is that a lot of the “hippy dippy” are pro personal freedom and anti-government, but more on the “anti-government” side. Every “libertarian” I know smokes pot/does other drugs and likes music, and they tend to be pretty right wing.
Of the “hippy dippy” peace love and happiness people I know that are into the “love and happiness” part tend to be ultra left.
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u/MCRN-Gyoza 2d ago
It's almost like dividing people into two neatly defined boxes is guaranteed to not capture the entire complexity of human opinions.
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u/LostWoodsInTheField 2d ago
left leaning like hippy dippy organic people?
yup. it was very very left leaning bs stuff. 'nature heals all' idiots. I feel like a lot of those people became right wing when Trump started in on stuff. they gravitate towards Trump and RJF jr.
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u/EnvironmentalHour613 2d ago
Aka druggie conspiracy theorists. They’re easy to fool. Their money is reliable.
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u/masterofbugs123 2d ago
When my husband did a study on anti-vax sentiments in undergrad he told me this with surprise in his voice. I grew up in a very hippie family and had just gotten the HPV vax because I just turned 18 and could. I was like “You didn’t know?” Very interesting how this is rarely discussed now.
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u/gooeydelight 1d ago
Meanwhile I got the HPV vax (10 years ago) in high-school because I was accepted into a good high-school (top 3 locally) and the teachers there were encouraging the science and other mates were getting it, I trusted them - my mother kind of let me decide, she was skeptical (though she was part of the hippie group back in the day) but said yes because she also trusted the school was good, the teachers had good intentions, other parents too and so on
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u/blotsfan 2d ago
There was always a strong “gubmint can’t tell me what to do” contingency. Before 2020 I had commented that antivax is one of the rare divisive issues that didn’t map onto one party in a clean way.
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u/Magic_Man_Boobs 2d ago
Yeah the pipeline from crunchy granola hippies to trad wife conservatives should be studied.
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u/MightySweep 2d ago
I just finished listening to a podcast episode where the hosts tracked how this pipeline got started and how it grew. Suffice to say, it was a good way to get otherwise politically disengaged people to join the cult.
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u/gomicao 2d ago
There is a granola to fascist pipeline... https://www.wired.com/story/yoga-disinformation-qanon-conspiracy-wellness/
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/02/1146318331/yoga-guru-qanon-conspiracy-theories
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u/bananaplaintiff 2d ago
There’s a pipe line for SURE
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u/bobbymcpresscot 2d ago
Just like that meme, where its like "look at this architecture we had, and look at us now"
It's some weird friggin right wing white supremacy pipeline
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u/MorphoMC 2d ago
This becomes a problem if a Democrat's doctor is Republican. Speaking from experience.
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u/Low-iq-haikou 2d ago
Genuinely though how can you be a doctor and support a party that practically demeans you and your expertise
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u/heyheyathrowaway485 2d ago
Hi speaking from experience. My former doctor told me the vaccine was “overblown” and that my anxiety “was all in my head and could be solved by sitting down and watching the news as a family.” They’re absolutely out there
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u/optigon 2d ago
I had a dentist out himself midway through a cavity filling. I'm there, mouth numbed and he's futzing with my face when he starts complaining about "sanitation theater" and how all these new fangled rules just drive up costs and that "nobody got any more sick back when we didn't do all this stuff!" He also rested some of his tools on my bib instead of on the tray.
I was like, "Fine, even if it's sanitation theater, I'm the audience and I want to see this stuff!" He finally wrapped and I started looking for a new dentist.
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u/Salsaprime 2d ago
Because money. Look at Dr. Oz. MFer is going to be running (i.e. ruining) medicare and medicaid soon.
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u/TrevelyansPorn 2d ago
He's a talk show host not a doctor.
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u/Processtour 2d ago
I just read his wiki page, he had input into developing cardiac devises and performed heart transplants. He was a cardiac surgery professor at Columbia, but the university removed all mention of him essentially because of disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine.
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u/Averiella 1d ago
He’s an actual doctor, specifically a cardio-thoracic surgeon. MD from University of Pennsylvania, residency at Presbyterian Hospital, later a professor at Columbia University.
He was a very good surgeon and made very prominent developments to his field that we still rely on today (notably relating to the mitral valve clip and LVAD).
He’s a terrible doctor obsessed with what makes him money and way too into the woo medicine, but he’s an incredibly skilled and talented surgeon and is still a doctor.
There are so many valid criticisms to launch at this egotistical man, but you chose the one that isn’t true and easily disproven?
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u/EnormousGucci 2d ago
They’re stupid. Just because you went to school and got a job doesn’t make you smart, it just shows you know how to do a thing.
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u/LostWoodsInTheField 2d ago
They’re stupid. Just because you went to school and got a job doesn’t make you smart, it just shows you know how to do a thing.
There is a good argument to be made that we actually have a major issue in our medical fields that there is a complete lack of diagnostics abilities of many doctors. If the problem doesn't present it's in a clear and easily understandable way they 'throw everything at the wall and see what sticks'.
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u/MobPsycho-100 2d ago
That’s a really interesting point. I’d like to better understand the argument you mention, and also want to know what we can do to fix these doctors just throwing everything at the wall!
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 2d ago
Some are that way for the money, some are that way because of their religion/upbringing.
96% of doctors got the Covid vaccine, although I'd guess we're split pretty evenly on party registration (maybe more democrat leaning with the increased number of women in medicine).
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u/TheNextBattalion 2d ago
My mom hasn't seen a doctor in seven years, because it's a very republican city so she doesn't trust the doctors to believe her
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u/Flat_Ad4183 2d ago
I've been searching for a doctor lately, and I've been looking up their voter registrations. In my (red) state, it's public online if you have their zip and birthday, which for most people is freely available on the clearnet if you know where to look.
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 2d ago
I've thought about doing that myself, for all my business. Really just avoiding businesses owned by the people who still fly their Trump flags (your local auditor's webpage with real estate records can be your friend).
With regards to doctors, if you find they're all registered republicans, it might be more from a money/tax/business standpoint. There's at least a chance that they might still be pro-science, pro-vaccine, and they might be flexible voters in this climate. There are some kooks out there too, though. Just my experience with friends and neighbors in medicine.
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u/Flat_Ad4183 2d ago
With regards to doctors, if you find they're all registered republicans, it might be more from a money/tax/business standpoint.
Yeah, that doesn't help at all. The healthcare situation in my state is a hellscape because of them. Trump is only the tip of the spear.
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u/chubbadub 2d ago
Just so you know…there is a significant number of docs that register republican in order to vote for the least batshit republican in the primaries then vote dem/third party…a significant portion of my friends do this so I don’t think it’s that reliable.
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u/what3v3ruwantit2b 2d ago
My dad didn't get the covid vaccine because he lives in a tiny, red dominated area and his doctor told him he "didn't trust it" and "didn't know if it was safe." Now my dad's in end stage heart failure due to the clot he got from covid. I will never not be mad at that doctor...and my dad for not asking/listening to me.
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u/_OriginalUsername- 2d ago
Reading the comments on this thread makes me glad I live in a country where worrying about my doctor's political affiliation isn't a thing.
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u/ReignyRainyReign 2d ago
I have no clue what my doctors political beliefs are. I don’t get how that would ever even come up.
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u/12172031 2d ago
Some people are just overtly political and go ahead and tell you even you don't know them or in a professional environment. Some are less overtly political but they'll make some off handed comments, have some opinions, shared some "facts", from which you can guess pretty accurately which way they lean politically.
Now my personal experience. Went to a new PCP, his exam room were filled with crucifixes and religious posters. Went home and checked his bio on the clinic's website and he mentioned that he belong to a Christian doctors association and which church's he goes to. You can guess which way he lean politically. I checked his voter registration just now and sure enough, he and his wife are registered Republican. Another doctor I went to has a framed picture of him shaking hand with Trump in the reception area.
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u/DeusExSpockina 2d ago
I live in a very blue area but I don’t know that I’ve ever met a Republican doctor in this century. I figured they all ended up out of regular practice working for insurance companies or healthcare administration.
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 2d ago
Most of the Republican/Conservative docs I know are that way from a business/fiscal standpoint. Many grew up religious, and it was their religious upbringing that drove them to a hard-working degree that also entailed caring for people.
The vast majority that I know are going to be reasonable from the standpoint of caring for the person, following the science (and corporate guidelines) first and foremost. The sketchiness you'll see is mostly going to be about real hot-button issues like abortion. At least most doctors going into women's health are also women who understand the problem better than your stereotypical old timey male GPs.
Source: I'm an MD who had a lot of interesting debates with fellow med students back in the day. I'm not in clinical practice but my wife (also MD) is, so we're pretty connected to the medical world. She's part of a huge physician moms group on Facebook, basically a subreddit for women who are also doctors, mothers, and crafters.
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u/grundar 2d ago
I live in a very blue area but I don’t know that I’ve ever met a Republican doctor in this century.
That's probably because you live in a very blue area; nationwide, 46% of doctors with a party registration were Republican.
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u/Blueginshelf 2d ago
Despite this headline, the data in this study shows that trust in personal doctors from both republicans and democrats declined since 2013. The republicans has declined at a great rate that democrats.
Democrats adherence to personal advice from doctors has increased, while republicans have decreased. Interestingly, they have almost the inverse of percentages from 2013.
Democrats had quite large increase in confidence in medicine. Republicans confidence in medicine decreased, though less sharply than the democrats increase.
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u/Ckyuiii 2d ago
It's like everyone forgot about the opioid crisis. Weren't republican areas hit harder with that? And then they had COVID after.
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u/QuestioningHuman_api 2d ago
Republican areas were hit harder by the opioid epidemic because Republican areas tend to have more poverty which usually means more drug use, and because Republicans don’t believe in social services or helping people outside their particular group, so people who became addicted in Republican areas didn’t (don’t, it’s still going on) have as many (if any) resources to help them. COVID was a bit different- Republican areas made the decision to not even try preventing the spread of COVID, and they saw the results of that. Both of those things are the result of their own decisions.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 2d ago
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
Abstract
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the gap in age-adjusted mortality rates between people living in Republican and Democratic counties expanded; people in Democratic counties started living longer. This paper argues that political partisanship poses a direct problem for ameliorating these trends: trust and adherence in one’s personal doctor (including on non-COVID-19 related care) – once a non-partisan issue – now divides Democrats (more trustful) and Republicans (less trustful). We argue that this divide is largely a consequence of partisan conflict surrounding COVID-19 that spilled over and created a partisan cleavage in people’s trust in their own personal doctor. We then present experimental evidence that sharing a political background with your medical provider increases willingness to seek care. The doctor-patient relationship is essential for combating some of society’s most pressing problems; understanding how partisanship shapes this relationship is vital.
From the linked article:
Democrats are more likely to trust their personal doctors and follow their doctors’ advice than Republicans, new research from the University of Oregon finds.
The findings have implications for personal and public health, as well as the practice of medicine in the United States.
Patients who trust their doctors are more likely to follow their doctor’s guidance on everything from managing diabetes to getting regular colon screenings, which improves health, various studies have shown.
“The big takeaway from our research is that after the COVID-19 pandemic, not only are the left and right divided on COVID-19 health matters, they’re also divided on trust in their own doctor and following their doctor’s advice about their health conditions,” O’Brian said. “This broader polarization about trust in medicine has trickled down to trust in your personal doctor to treat, in some cases, your chronic illnesses.”
That’s alarming because life expectancy has stagnated in the United States and declined in the early 2020s, O’Brian said.
Between 2001 and 2019, scholars also identified a growing gap in death rates between people living in Republican and Democratic-leaning counties. Residents of Democratic counties were living longer.
“If people don’t trust medical institutions or health professionals, then it makes it harder to solve health problems and could potentially exacerbate them,” O’Brian said.
Next, the researchers investigated how much a doctor’s political affiliation mattered to patients. It turned out to carry a lot of weight.
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u/KubelsKitchen 2d ago
Educated people trust educated people. Uneducated people think educated people are suspicious. With all their big words.
We need better education in this country.
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u/blarnman 2d ago
Personally, it's a "trust but verify" for myself and several friends. If we're genuinely worried about something and we think we're being brushed off or that our issue isn't being taken seriously, we will go and get second or third opinions or seek out a specialist if time/money allows. Many doctors in our (somewhat rural) area have a "wait and see" attitude and it has caused minor issues to develop into massive problems a couple times for our families that, had they been taken seriously right away, wouldn't have required more than some prescription medications.
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u/UjhSkyler 2d ago
Yeah the doctors around by me have that attitude and just are completely dismissive to anything but something they can see directly thats clearly bad! They act all high and mighty and get mad if you dare think or say you want to be sure that it isn’t anything. So I don’t like doctors that much, at least the ones around by me as they want people to take their word as gospel, even though there’s been a bunch of times they were wrong or out right lazy
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u/5oy8oy 2d ago
I have many personal examples over the course of my life where, had I simply trusted my doctors, I'd have gotten several unnecessary procedures and I'd be on multiple medications "for the rest of my life."
Not to mention all the more minor times when I was, for example, rxd antibiotics because my cough "might" be bacterial. Where I didn't take them and healed just fine on my own.
Of course, many cases where doctors were super helpful too. All to say, I agree with trust but verify. Not with blindly trust nor with the other extreme.
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u/strigonian 2d ago
Not to mention all the more minor times when I was, for example, rxd antibiotics because my cough "might" be bacterial. Where I didn't take them and healed just fine on my own.
That doesn't mean it wasn't bacterial.
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u/5oy8oy 2d ago
My point isn't whether it was bacterial or not. It's that antibiotics are over rx'd which comes with its own risks not only for the individual but also in terms of contributing to "super bugs." It could very well have been bacterial, but it was mild enough to not need a round of antibiotics.
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u/InsanitysMuse 2d ago
I was gonna say, it's ironic that as an extremely progressive trans woman I've had to do the equivalent of doctor shopping / do-my-own-research because HRT is the wild west and so, so many doctors are well meaning but using standards from a decade or more ago (which doesn't sound that long ago but the knowledge has improved a lot since then).
It actually made me uncomfortable to be doing that because of how "do your own research" and distrusting experts is such a conservative thing now. But based on our conversations it was pretty evident I seemed to know more up to date info on this specific thing, and how it might relate to me. Took me almost a year and 4 tries to find a doctor that was like "yea let's find the right treatment for you" for HRT (and that actually clearly knew far and away more than me about it)
There are so many other things where I wouldn't even know where to begin to verify so trust in experts is really important to me. For health and medicine, especially as a woman or any kind of minority, you do sadly have to be your own advocate way too often.
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u/rogers_tumor 1d ago
thank you for sharing, this is such a great example.
as a progressive woman, knowing how hard it is to find proper medical care - I cannot imagine how much harder it is for you.
I love science. I love data. I love research.
I do not love lazy, holier-than-thou doctors. and it is SO hard as a woman, or feminine-presenting person to get doctors to actually hear you when you speak and take your concerns seriously.
I research my conditions to death so I can present my problems to medical professionals in a way that I expect the information I feed them and how I do so will lead them to the correct diagnosis or an appropriate prescription without stepping on the toes of their degrees or making it feel like I'm doctor/medication shopping. it's insane that I have to do this. I'm always fully open to the possibility that I'm wrong, too - and listen to their feedback + recommendations to see if I've misunderstood something in my own research because that can absolutely happen.
but that can lead to the same frustrating dismissiveness.
i.e. I was diagnosed with ADHD last year. I currently take a dosage of Vyvanse that's usually prescribed to ten year olds. I just started a mentally attention intensive job and I'm utterly failing to get my work done. I've been trying to get my dosage upped for two months. they keep telling me "no, because your symptoms were previously managed at this dosage." when it's COMMON knowledge that low doses of ADHD medications need to be increased over time as the patient adjusts to them and they become less effective.
and I can't seem to explain to them that yes, my symptoms were managed when I was unemployed and looking for work. you can't see how starting a new job and operating on a brand new schedule that makes way more demands on my overall executive functioning on an extremely low dose of meds means my meds don't work anymore???? I don't want to lose my job because medical professionals I've entrusted my care to refuse to listen to and help me.
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u/scotcetera 2d ago
Is it because so many on the right were duped into believing the looney antivax conspiracy theories?
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u/Ausaevus 2d ago
I was watching a friend swipe on a dating app and one woman had something like:
'If you are vaccinated and don't pay attention to what is going on in the world, we are not a match' in her bio.
It was... maddening. The sheer, absolute certainty she had that her null education and life without intellectuals around her somehow made her trust she knows better than scholars educated in the field is just... bizarre.
It's worrying to a transformative degree. I think society needs to stop supporting bad actors to survive.
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u/Tetrachroma_ 2d ago
Science has almost always benefited humanity.
I cannot for the life of me fathom why people would adopt anti-scientific views. Like you said, these ignorant individuals are proud of it! Insanity...
Anti-intellectualism yay!
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 2d ago
I cannot for the life of me fathom why people would adopt anti-scientific views.
I read an interesting article probably 20 or 25 years ago, right about when Carl Sagan made his oft-cited observation in The Demon Haunted World. It boiled down to how all the knowledge that supports our civilization is so specialized that only people in those specialties can understand the intricacies. Before the digital age, even simple people could see how even relatively complex machines worked. A banker or a scientist could fix their car. Doctors had far less knowledge than we do today, and far fewer diagnostic tools and treatments to help the sick. Death was more of a way of life, people weren't insulated from it.
Now, and for the past 50+ years, the knowledge base has exploded so exponentially that you can't really be an expert in all facets of your daily life. What that means is, we have to trust our safety, our health, our means of transportation, our banking/economy, to other people. That's scary as hell.
Our easily accessed knowledge base about our place in history and in the cold dead universe reminds us of how small and unimportant we are. The more we look for a traditional 'God', the less evident it becomes that there's any order to it. That's scary as hell.
Scientists know that for every question that gets answered, 3 more unknowns pop up. The unknown is scarier than hell. Knowledge is fear. For now, these people can thrive on the good will of civilization around them. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse (famine, plague, war, and death) have been pushed back far enough by science and reason that people can forget about them for long stretches of their lives, and settle back into their own self-importance and sense of invincibility.
People, especially self-important ones, don't want to be reminded of their own weakness and mortality, and they lash out at those who challenge them on anything.
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u/Tetrachroma_ 2d ago
Humanity needs to get over it's own insecurities as a species.
Carl Sagan is in my top 3 all time role models. There is little I've read or heard quoted by Sagan that I disagree with. The man was beyond knowledgeable.
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u/Prodigy195 2d ago
People will say anti science things on the internet...that exists thanks to scientific advancement, using laptops/phones built thanks to scientific advancement.
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u/Zarokima 2d ago
Science disproves fantasies like religion and trickle-down economics. If you're invested in those fantasies, then science is your enemy. This is why Republicans keep attacking education.
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u/dicklord_airplane 2d ago
I was so glad that tinder added the option to state whether you had your vaccines or not. I'm glad they made it easier to avoid those insane antivax women. If they're antivax, they're guaranteed to have fallen for a bunch of other dangerous nonsense too.
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u/ximacx74 2d ago
Not just antivax. Trump has convinced Republicans that any expert in any subject is lying to them (Healthcare officials, scientists, urban planners, psychologists, etc). That way Trump can feed them any information he wants and they won't trust the experts showing proof that he's wrong
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u/tetrified 2d ago
Trump has convinced Republicans that any expert in any subject is lying to them
if the comments on here are anything to go by, a good chunk of them don't believe there can be experts in any subject, which is arguably even more idiotic imo
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u/mynumberistwentynine 2d ago edited 2d ago
Except business expert businessman Trump, all those bankruptcies weren't his fault btw, that is.
eye roll so hard I'm chasing my eyes down the hallway
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u/drdroplet 2d ago
Let Darwinism do it's work.
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u/what-i-cant-hear-you 2d ago
Maybe, but they do tend to reproduce like rabbits. Democrats aren't having kids.
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u/ShadeDragonIncarnate 2d ago
Yes, and if the world is lucky they'll take out the rest of humanity in the splash. They're compromising herd immunity, which allows previously contained illnesses to mutate over a larger population, ignoring climate change, and working towards spreading ignorance. Standing to the side is aiding them.
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u/pentultimate 2d ago
When your political foes start citing snake oil salesmen and Podcasters as epidemiological experts, you run to safety
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 2d ago
Republicans hate anyone educated and mis-trust all knowledge. But they will gleefully follow someone that tells them to put a UV light up their butt and eat horse de-wormer.
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u/Villain_of_Brandon 2d ago
when Democrats began to show more trust in their doctors than Republicans.
Did they their trust increase, or was it just relative to Republicans who began to trust their doctors less?
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u/spyczech 2d ago
Interesting I feel like its impossible not to gain trust in your doctors when you see their advice ignored result in the death of loved oens around you
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u/Puzzled-Science-1870 2d ago
Then trumplicans need to quit going to the doctor and clogging up the ERs
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u/HastyEthnocentrism 2d ago
Natural selection got pissed that we defeated it, and it's found a way to select against stupidity.
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u/timmytapshoes42 1d ago
Gee…how surprising. I wonder if there was some kind of major world health event around 2020 that spurred this.
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u/mr_SM1TTY 1d ago
They love doing their own research. 10 min of googling is somehow equal to 10 years of med school.
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u/Status-Affect-5320 2d ago
I think there needs to be some middle ground between blind trust for a doctor and extreme skepticism. Doctors sometimes are figuring it out as much as you and if you significantly differ from what they expect you can get screwed
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u/MazzIsNoMore 2d ago
Is there any indication that there is "blind trust" happening or is it just the normal kind of trust?
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u/NotAThrowaway1453 2d ago
But presupposing that blind trust is a widespread phenomenon makes it easier for me to make vapid “middle ground” sounding statements that trick mouth breathers into thinking I’m being nuanced.
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u/needlenozened 2d ago
This drove a lot of doctors out of medicine. My wife is a doctor and she changed jobs to work at a pediatric hospital so she wouldn't have to deal with adult patients. Patients she'd had for 15 years suddenly stopped trusting her medical advice, and would argue with her. Parents are more likely to listen to doctors regarding their children's healthcare than their own, regardless of their political party
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u/Strict-Farmer904 2d ago
I should say too, I don’t just blindly trust my doctor on matters of diagnosis. I compare and get second opinions. And the conclusions of those doctors go into a cumulative understanding of the situation. The first guy said I had colitis. Good thing I went to two gastroenterologists to determine that Dr #1 was incorrect. But importantly, and the way that some people in my life seem to misunderstand is that I’m never just taking a single doctor’s word for it. I’m relying on the collective knowledge base from which all doctors are pulling, to which all doctors are contributing. I had a family member the other day tell me I needed to go to some…I don’t even remember what it was, some sort of quacky sounding thing. A naturalness doctor or something? I don’t know. But someone for whom there really is no oversight. And that’s the point. If someone is going to be looking at my body and making determinations and recommendations regarding the state of my health, I’d like that person to be sharing the same basic definitions as other doctors
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u/Lore_ofthe_Horizon 1d ago
The study found that Republicans and Democrats shared a trust in their doctors until 2020, when
Democrats began to show more trust in their doctors than RepublicansRepublicans went fucking insane.
Super weird way to phrase conservatives turning their back on all knowledge and wisdom on this planet at the same time.
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u/Knighth77 2d ago
Some people trust science, research, and evidence. Others prefer gut feeling, unfounded claims, and magic. Some trust doctors, scientists, and experts. Others prefer politicians, quacks, and holy men.
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u/Mama_Skip 2d ago
As I assume this is a recent(ish) phenomenon, I wonder how average lifespan will be affected between the two parties in the next 20 years.
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u/Xanikk999 2d ago
I don't understand why any reasonable person who is NOT educated about a topic would trust their own judgement on it over someone who has spent years learning about it and practicing it in a professional manner. There is absolutely nothing wrong with deferring to experts. It's what any reasonable person would do in regards to something they know nothing about.
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u/justabuckeye 2d ago
Good exercise to test some Charles Darwin theories
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u/GoodtimesSans 2d ago
The problem arises when they take the rest of us down with them by respreading a disease that we wiped out decades ago.
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u/mnl_cntn 2d ago
Wahhhh?! Republicans don’t trust science, facts and/or common sense?!
Color me surprised, never woulda thought of it from those racists
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