In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, doctors detailed the cases of the two women, ages 22 and 40, who experienced "transient smartphone blindness" for months.
The women complained of recurring episodes of temporary vision loss for up to 15 minutes. They were subjected to variety of medical exams, MRI scans and heart tests. Yet doctors couldn't find anything wrong with them to explain the problem.
.........
But minutes after walking into an eye specialist's office, the mystery was solved. "I simply asked them, 'What exactly were you doing when this happened?'" recalled Dr. Gordon Plant of Moorfield's Eye Hospital in London.
He explained that both women typically looked at their smartphones with only one eye while resting on their side in bed in the dark - their other eye was covered by the pillow.
"So you have one eye adapted to the light because it's looking at the phone and the other eye is adapted to the dark," he said. When they put their phone down, they couldn't see with the phone eye. That's because "it's taking many minutes to catch up to the other eye that's adapted to the dark," Plant said.
I've done this unintentionally countless times and immediately self-diagnosed the "blindness" problem. So not only are these people idiots, but we have medical doctors prescribing MRIs and heart tests.
iwealth wrote:
I've done this unintentionally countless times and immediately self-diagnosed the "blindness" problem. So not only are these people idiots, but we have medical doctors prescribing MRIs and heart tests.
And my health premiums keep rising...argh.
I saw that and thought the exact same thing! Everyone involved in this chain of events, from the "patient" to the doctor to the reporter, is basically a moron.
Xan wrote:
I saw that and thought the exact same thing! Everyone involved in this chain of events, from the "patient" to the doctor to the reporter, is basically a moron.
You are not aware how medicine is practiced today. As someone who does not order any tests, but interprets the imaging studies ordered by others (CTs, MRIs, etc) I can tell you that we have gone far far down the line from practicing defensive medicine. You now have to order the test to exclude the rare possibility, no matter how unlikely. That is how medicine is practiced (at least in the US).
Benko wrote:You now have to order the test to exclude the rare possibility, no matter how unlikely. That is how medicine is practiced (at least in the US).
Is this for fear of malpractice suits? Because surely some doctor in the chain had to recognize what was going on here. Do we now have a front line of doctors that do nothing but prescribe tests with results to be interpreted by other doctors whose job is to then relay the results back to the prescribing doctor?
Benko wrote:You now have to order the test to exclude the rare possibility, no matter how unlikely. That is how medicine is practiced (at least in the US).
Is this for fear of malpractice suits?
No. It was once, but now it has been established as the way you have to practice (prove every pt doesn't have the rare thing). There is no going back. And to be fair, if you are the person walking in the ER with the rare disease, you will be better off getting the test. It is just they will have to image many people who don't have anything to find you.
And as someone who sees lots of tests ordered for what seems on my end to be silly reasons on a daily basis, I have a differernt view from e.g. WiseOne and the people who order the tests. Perhaps she will chime in.
Benko wrote:You are not aware how medicine is practiced today. As someone who does not order any tests, but interprets the imaging studies ordered by others (CTs, MRIs, etc) I can tell you that we have gone far far down the line from practicing defensive medicine. You now have to order the test to exclude the rare possibility, no matter how unlikely. That is how medicine is practiced (at least in the US).
I wish that philosophy worked at the PCP level so I could get everything I want tested for "free" instead of what was just demeed most necessary or acceptable. This stuff isn't cheap out of pocket.
OTOH, compared to the bad old days where negligience ruled because doctor's let their biases and personal pet opinions dictate what was and what wasn't necessary as far as diagnostic and etiology went, I rather them be much more thorough today like a expert system/robot would.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
