Question for/about doctors?

Animavore · #1 by **Animavore** » Jan 22, 2012 9:33 am

This is one of those questions I was a supposed to ask ages ago but keep forgetting.

You often hear theists say stuff like, "The doctors gave me two years to live when I had cancer I had faith in God and here I am seven years later." Now there's always a touch of "I showed them" and "you can't explain this, nyeh nyeh" in these "miraculous" stories but one thread that is common is that they maintain the doctors told them two (or whatever) years like it was a fact. I find this hard to believe. I'd imagine they'd say, something like, "The general prognosis for this condition is two years."
What do doctors actually say in these cases?

Durro · #2 by **Durro** » Jan 22, 2012 12:01 pm

You're pretty much spot on Ani. Doctors talk in terms of probabilities when discussing morbidity and mortality with terminally ill patients, factoring in of course the individual condition and prognosis of the patient.

For example, they may say to person X that the inoperable cancer they have is fatal within about 12 months for X% of people and that they can expect something like that.

However, all bell curves are made up of not only the big bell in the middle, but the statistical quirks at both ends, so some people go downhill a lot faster and some outlive all expectations. There's many factors with terminal disease - effectiveness of treatment, the body's immune system, nutrition and general well being, frame of mind, support people, etc.

Zwaarddijk · #3 by **Zwaarddijk** » Jan 22, 2012 1:49 pm

Durro wrote:You're pretty much spot on Ani. Doctors talk in terms of probabilities when discussing morbidity and mortality with terminally ill patients, factoring in of course the individual condition and prognosis of the patient.

For example, they may say to person X that the inoperable cancer they have is fatal within about 12 months for X% of people and that they can expect something like that.

However, all bell curves are made up of not only the big bell in the middle, but the statistical quirks at both ends, so some people go downhill a lot faster and some outlive all expectations. There's many factors with terminal disease - effectiveness of treatment, the body's immune system, nutrition and general well being, frame of mind, support people, etc.

And for rather natural reasons, we'll never hear the representatives of the other end of the bell curve complain about the doctors being wrong the other way around.

AlohaChris · #4 by **AlohaChris** » Jan 30, 2012 1:40 am

Durro was right on. No doctor is going to say to a patient: "You have six months to live" unless their an idiot. Most people get this ideation from watching medical dramas on TV where this kind of tripe is standard fare.

Scientifically, a formula can be developed that uses patient information to calculate risk among groups of people with a particular condition. In describing what will happen to those patients over time, such predictions about the group can be quite accurate, but predictions about any given individual are not nearly as accurate.

For example, let's say you're diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In response to "How long have I got Doc?", the physician would probably say something like: "This disease, even with maximal treatment has a 90% mortality rate at 3 years." "Given your age, history of heart disease, and previous stroke, your chances may be less than that."

Many people may interpret this as "The doctor gave me three years or less to live!", but that's not what was said.

As to the "They gave me two years to live, but the good Lord healed me!" that's usually associated with a misdiagnosis or particular cancers that are documented to (rarely) undergo spontaneous remission/regression: neuroblastomas, melanomas and lymphomas. That person is usually either lying, misinformed or a statistical outlier.