> In my experience, almost every single doctor will not only talk down to patients who know something, they will also put them in the "crackpot hypochondriac" bucket.
In fairness, that's generally the appropriate approach. Given the choice between "crackpot hypochondriac" and "disease most doctors won't see in a lifetime of practice", the former is far more common.
Yeah, so as it turns out, speaking in generalities is useless. Let's talk about the specific condition so those of us with a medical background can talk about the degree of difficulty of diagnosis and treatment. Saying "being dismissive is bad" is just universally true.
In a perfect world, perhaps. Here in the States, though, there's already a shortage of general practitioners.
Expecting them to spend significant extra time with all the hypochondriacs is simply not practical. Doing so would be a detriment to every patient in the system.
But for "disease most doctors won't see in a lifetime of practice" it generally is appropriate (or at least some form of dismissal is appropriate), since the patient is generally wrong.
NB: "generally" in this case means approx 99.9% of the time.
In fairness, that's generally the appropriate approach. Given the choice between "crackpot hypochondriac" and "disease most doctors won't see in a lifetime of practice", the former is far more common.