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Comment by mgraczyk

You're imagining that the doctor is required to act irrationally or against the patient's interest. I understand that they do act this way, but I'm pointing out that they don't have to!

You walk into a doctor's office and meet for the first time.

Case 1. You have 3 full body MRIs taken 6 months apart in hand and give them to your doctor. Nobody has opened or looked at the scans yet.

Case 2. You do not have a scan yet

You are claiming case 1 will lead to worse outcomes in expectation. I claim that's impossible because the doctor can simply do the following: Without opening the scans, email them to the world's best radiologist. Tell that radiologist "only reply if it is nearly certain the patient has an operable cancer with the information available"

Now there are 4 possibilities.

Case 1 without cancer: nothing happens

Case 2 without cancer: nothing happens

Case 1 with cancer: you maybe survive

Case 2 with cancer: you die

The only reasonable objection to this is "that's expensive"

parent mgraczyk 8 months ago

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