Second Opinion from Doctor Results in Different Diagnosis 88% of Time

Science Daily clearly takes point of view of the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC)--profit before patients--that the value of second opinions are demonstrated in a study, whereas I see this from the highly skeptical-of-the-deeply-rooted-MIC point of view that it can't be trusted 88% of the time. We don't know whether the first or second opinion is right or wrong. What about a third opinion? Would that opinion disagree with the first and the second?

“Many patients come to Mayo Clinic for a second opinion or diagnosis confirmation before treatment for a complex condition. In a new study, Mayo Clinic reports that as many as 88 percent of those patients go home with a new or refined diagnosis — changing their care plan and potentially their lives. Conversely, only 12 percent receive confirmation that the original diagnosis was complete and correct.

We take it for granted that the Mayo Clinic is right because, well, they're the Mayo Clinic, the poster child for the MIC, this vast networked system that we've been indoctrinated to believe in since birth.
It's not that the MIC is all bad, or hasn't saved many lives and improved the quality of many others.  It's the fact that the opposite is also true, it has destroyed and ruined lives, possibly in equal measure   and we're made to believe there are no other viable options. 

“We are not saying that there are no useful or helpful things within the MIC. It has saved many of our lives or the lives of people we love. We are not anti healthcare or science, but are rather exposing the reality that many of us are dependent on the MIC while we are simultaneously trying to change it and ultimately build alternatives to it. Many of us don’t want to have to turn to the MIC, yet have few other viable options. And still many of us are fighting for access to current (or better) services within the MIC. There are no easy answers and the contradictions we are living in are often painful and unjust. Similar to our work to resist and challenge capitalism or to create alternatives to the police and prisons, resisting and challenging the MIC is rife with complexity and there is so much we need that we don’t have yet.

We are asking, why we have so few options when it comes to our healthcare needs? And why insurance and pharmaceutical companies get to call the shots on the kind of care we receive—or don’t? Why don’t we talk more about the ways that forced medicalization has become part of our prison system? Or how non-western and alternative healing practices are often no less ableist than western medical practices? We are asking, what could “health,” “wellness,” “care,” “accessibility” and “sustainability” look like in practice, outside of theory? We are revealing where and how the MIC is already in our lives in ways we might not have thought of before. We are urging us all to connect the MIC to our political work, because healing, wellness, care, “health” and disability are part of whatever liberatory work we are engaged in.

Links:

Medical Industrial Complex Visual

“The Medical Industrial Complex is an enormous system with tentacles that reach beyond simply doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals. It is a system about profit, first and foremost, rather than “health,” well being and care. Its roots run deep and its history and present are connected to everything including eugenics, capitalism, colonization, slavery, immigration, war, prisons, and reproductive oppression. It is not just a major piece of the history of ableism, but all systems of oppression.