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rinue[In that imaginary world where I have free time, I could pitch these as articles and then write them up at much greater length for money. For the time being, I am simply copying comments I left in other people's blogs.]
A comment on Val's Blog
Medicine is in a weird place right now. There is a ton of information to keep up with, whereas before it was like "here, you can use this for a cough, and if that doesn't work just wait and if that doesn't work I guess you're going to die."
At the same time, practictioners don't particularly know their patients anymore. Everybody moves; everybody changes insurance; everybody is going to a bunch of different specialists and the doctor has certainly never been to your house.
The only way to cope with this is large databases, most of which are online. And either you're putting your own information in, or doctors are doing the exact same thing at the office.
As much as I am a Person of Science, I kind of feel like doctors have turned into librarians. You find the thing and come to them and they say "yep, you can check that out, here's the treatment" or they say "hmmm, that reference is out of date and also you've been checking out a lot of books and not returning them, so no."
Which is very useful! But not the way doctors are used to thinking of themselves at all, and certainly not the way they are trained (which cost them a lot of time and money). So there's friction and dissatisfaction all around.
A comment on Spacefem's blog
The whole "turning on each other" thing happens a lot in marginalized groups - that thing where suddenly we have a new superhero we all love and will not hear criticism about, and then a few weeks later we all hate that person and anybody who likes that person. It happens a lot in feminism, but I've also seen it happen a lot in queer spaces, and among mid-list fiction writers.
I suspect it's related to the Bases of Power theory. People who don't have much access to coersive power, reward power, and legitimate power (the stuff that comes from being on top of an org structure) or expert power and informational power (because they're getting most of their information from the same sources as the people they're talking to and/or believe it's been corrupted by the self-interested) have to lean really hard on referent power: I approve or disapprove this, loudly. I get to say what's good, and you can't take that away from me.
[As feminists of color have repeatedly brought up, including Flavia Dzovidan, blackfeminpower, and Gradient Lair, this power can be appropriated - white people trading on the referent power of black people, straight people trying to assume the moral authority of gay people, etc. My personal feeling is that building a movement solely on referent power is standing on shifting sands.]
A comment on Val's Blog
Medicine is in a weird place right now. There is a ton of information to keep up with, whereas before it was like "here, you can use this for a cough, and if that doesn't work just wait and if that doesn't work I guess you're going to die."
At the same time, practictioners don't particularly know their patients anymore. Everybody moves; everybody changes insurance; everybody is going to a bunch of different specialists and the doctor has certainly never been to your house.
The only way to cope with this is large databases, most of which are online. And either you're putting your own information in, or doctors are doing the exact same thing at the office.
As much as I am a Person of Science, I kind of feel like doctors have turned into librarians. You find the thing and come to them and they say "yep, you can check that out, here's the treatment" or they say "hmmm, that reference is out of date and also you've been checking out a lot of books and not returning them, so no."
Which is very useful! But not the way doctors are used to thinking of themselves at all, and certainly not the way they are trained (which cost them a lot of time and money). So there's friction and dissatisfaction all around.
A comment on Spacefem's blog
The whole "turning on each other" thing happens a lot in marginalized groups - that thing where suddenly we have a new superhero we all love and will not hear criticism about, and then a few weeks later we all hate that person and anybody who likes that person. It happens a lot in feminism, but I've also seen it happen a lot in queer spaces, and among mid-list fiction writers.
I suspect it's related to the Bases of Power theory. People who don't have much access to coersive power, reward power, and legitimate power (the stuff that comes from being on top of an org structure) or expert power and informational power (because they're getting most of their information from the same sources as the people they're talking to and/or believe it's been corrupted by the self-interested) have to lean really hard on referent power: I approve or disapprove this, loudly. I get to say what's good, and you can't take that away from me.
[As feminists of color have repeatedly brought up, including Flavia Dzovidan, blackfeminpower, and Gradient Lair, this power can be appropriated - white people trading on the referent power of black people, straight people trying to assume the moral authority of gay people, etc. My personal feeling is that building a movement solely on referent power is standing on shifting sands.]
