It took me three useless and expensive visits to a supposed "animal hospital" before I was given a referral to a clinic with real vets and real veterinary specialists.
After my mom was diagnosed with giant cell arteritis I sat in a rheumatologist's office and watched him shush her while he went down a damned checklist, instead of having a conversation with her.
Five years later, that same condition was caused to flare because her young general practitioner put her on a drug for bone density that you are apparently not supposed to go back onto if you've had it in the past.
Some close family friends have the husband in the hospital, finally, after months of various doctors treating him incorrectly for a cough - many Z-packs and butt injections later it turns out he's actually suffering from distention in his abdomen.
We can all give examples of widespread failures in medical AND non-medical diagnostic situations.
My instinct is that critical diagnostic thinking was never as good as I want to believe it to have been.
But it sure feels like it, and so I'm chewing on this one right now.
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