A Surgeon's Foray into Finlands Health Care System
 

This article is by a really good surgeon that is a friend of mine. Brilliant in his field but surprised by his experience as a patient in the US. I just put the first couple paragraphs here, the full article is at the link. Excellent read and overall pretty short. Should be safe for the Lounge but mods feel free to move if it swerves off course.

The story of my foray as a patient into a foreign healthcare system began almost a year prior to writing this piece.To condense a very long story I developed an uncommon painful condition known as high hamstring tendinopathy (HHT) in both legs as a result of a lifetime of exercise.

As a physician I was determined to educate myself thoroughly on this uncommon condition. I learned there were fairly divergent geographical approaches and strategies for its treatment. Much of the literature describing the condition and operative treatment came from Finland.The Finnish group first described the condition in 1988 [1] and also developed a unique and effective surgical approach which targeted the specific tendon and pathology, and proved to be highly successful and safe.The conservative nature of the surgery also permitted treatment of both legs at the same operation if necessary [2–4].

Most Americans with HHT are triaged to physical therapy and therapeutic injections despite the lack of proven success of those interventions. Those seeking surgery are offered the same operation performed for traumatic tears. Although successful, it is an excessive operation requiring a much longer recovery and rehabilitation which also limits its application to only one leg at a time.

Full article and not much longer here.

http://sjp.sagepub.com/content/44/3/...keytype=finite

Interesting read. I suspect it's headed to DC soon.

What I could tell you seeing the invoices to BCBS and Medicare for my dialysis and tests for transplant.......

I'll bet that's a staggering number :eek:

The dialysis is staggering by itself... Monthly.

The testing was one time, but was close to $30K per hospital (I went to two).

I once dated a girl from Finland.

It didn't work out. She kept screaming "I'M FINNISH! I'M FINNISH!"

I am guessing the reason the Finns have a lot more experience with that type of injury is how rugged Finland is. Outside of the cities it has pretty sparse infrastructure and in winter going out in skis or snowmobile would probably be more effective than a car outside the major cities.

Nothing wrong with learning from other countries experience. I believe Germany does some therapies that the FDA has not approved of yet.

The difference in price was staggering to. You could pay for a first class flight and live there for 3 years and still come out better.

You and your Wisconsin rape culture...

Wisconsin's state animal is the sloth. If you didn't know.

Exercising is bad for you? Thank god