WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: Why do People no Longer Trust Their Physician?

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Emma and Sophia discuss an article that talks about the growing distrust of doctors and the medical field.

You're listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Sophia Mant, speaking with my co-host Emma Vrini, and in this episode, we are going to discuss a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, titled Why We Don't Trust Doctors Like We Used to. Patients often feel ignored and complain about disjointed care and a lack of communication, and written by Claire Ansberry. So what are some initial thoughts you have about this article, Emma? I thought this would be a really interesting article to do because I think it's certainly true that a lot of people don't trust doctors like they used to.

I mean, I hear anecdotally I hear people talk about this and they say that they don't trust doctors. I've seen memes about it where people are saying, you know, I'm going to have to take care of myself really well because we're not going to be able to trust these doctors who did their education online. and virtually during the pandemic, I've seen a lot of stuff like that, and obviously that's projecting way into the future. But I think that it's just something that a lot of people are feeling. And I think there are a lot of reasons that contribute to it. And I don't know if all of those reasons are necessarily addressed in the article. But we should definitely look into some of these people who are quoted in the article. There are a couple of people, particularly elders, people who feel like they are not taken care of by their doctors and you know it's just you go through

like this revolving door of doctors and none of them really uh give you the time of day and every once in a while you do get one that's really great and um i mean sometimes circumstances make it that you can't see that doctor anymore so it's just like basically it's really hard to find a good one, it feels like. Yeah. Well, it's like we live in a different realm where now it's these big corporate places to get care and you no longer have the trusted old small town doctor. And it's unfortunate because I do know of a relative I have who is going through this, lives in a big city, had real problems with their kidneys. And she really had to advocate for herself for her own safety because these doctors, you know, I get the sense I'm not in healthcare that it's become so specialized

that they might know a lot about, you know, kidneys, but very little about other parts of the body to the point where, in her case, people were prescribing her medication that was dangerous for her to take because it had negative health effects from what I remember on other parts of her body because she was also having other health issues. And that's scary. And it was just very, we're just, you know, not personalized, not this sense of care for the individual and helping them and this close connection at all, and it's really unfortunate and sad. I do feel a bit lucky. I don't live in a super small place, but back home in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I'm from, I never felt like I experienced horrific or bad care. I always felt like the people there seemed to actually care about me,

but I did experience just this frustration and just no bedside of there at all one time when I was really sick and had a bad fever. And it's just, it's not a, it's not a good feeling, although this trust of doctors is interesting to me because I sense that growing, but I still feel like I personally have an average, a little bit more of, yes, advocate for myself, but trusting a doctor than I do a random person. Because, for example, my aunt was a nurse for many years, which yes, is not as high of a position as a doctor, but a lot of times maybe because of that small town connection, or whatnot or just family connection, my mom and me or other folks, if we're like minor stuff or just, you know, if we have more questions, we would ask her because we know that she knows

a little bit more about, you know, what's going on in the body and how to help us than we would since she has more training in that field. So this made me feel sad and it also makes me wonder if it's in some cases a worse issue in larger cities where there maybe is even less personal connection. Do you have any experience or opinions on that? think that it definitely is the case that when you have fewer doctors and just more people who constantly need treatment, that it's going to be harder to develop a personal connection with the doctor. So I'm not necessarily sure if it's like a worse phenomenon in cities as opposed to in rural areas or in suburban areas. But as someone who back home lives in the suburbs,

I can say that someone in my family really had to advocate for themselves as well when they got very sick. And basically they knew that something was definitely very, very wrong, but their doctor just did not listen. They were like, oh, you know, it's just a cold. It's just like the flu. And it was way worse than that. And so, I mean, I think this is a sort of thing. that can happen anywhere, although I'm not, I'm not sure if it's worse or where it is worse. I just, I don't have the information to say that. But, but definitely just the fact that there are so many people who are always trying to get an appointment and just not able to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and also the author, Claire Ansberry mentions how trust levels have fallen a tonne since 2021, according to a Gallup poll where, 53% of those in 2024 gave a higher, very high rating to medical doctors, down from 67% in 2021, the biggest drop among 23 professions ranked by Gallup in that period. That's massive. I do wonder if kind of this shift towards alternate, more natural medicine, RFK, the rise of people like that, COVID, is responsible. I would tend to think it would be, but it's kind of unfortunate because it sounds like from the article, it's a double-edged sword of you have, it seems, real problems with connections to just wanting profits and, you know, connections that seem true. Emma will talk about this in more detail to big pharma and doctors wanting to make more money, but that it's unfortunate when you have

patients who don't trust a doctor who, unfortunately, you know, really does mean well and want the best for their patient, which she also mentions is an issue later in the article. Like, it's like, it's, it's hurting everyone. It's hurting the good doctors. and yeah it's the only people that's helping are the uncaring ones who just want money well yeah i think it's interesting that they use the the year 2021 and then 2024 so i i decided to look for a different statistic and i did find one um this is just uh jama network dot com where um a lot of studies are posted and stuff so this is april 2020 which i think is probably a better um like time stamp to actually look at those statistics. So here they are. I'll just read the, I'll just read

the second part of this sentence under findings. Trust in physicians and hospitals decreased substantially over the course of the pandemic from 71.5% April 2020 to 40.1% in January of 24. And so this article is called trust in positions and hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. You're listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I think that using the pandemic as a metric yields much more telling statistics here. And I definitely do think that people have started to doubt the healthcare field a little bit more after the pandemic. Because, I mean, it is true that even the most forefront health officials did not know what was going on and would repeatedly change the story and say, oh, yeah. Well, you know, we know it's not contagious if you

stand within six feet or actually, well, you have to get the vaccine now and it's like, okay. Yeah. The goalpost just kept on shifting and a lot of people got really frustrated because they were being told something authoritatively, and then it just kept turning out to not be true. Yeah, yeah. The problem was that even I think doctors that, you know, the doctors that meant well, it was a new outbreak. And so no one really knew, including the doctors, that much about it specifically. So the information was changing. And then you realize when it comes to this field, which in all fairness, anyone would be its new outbreak to some level, like, it makes sense there'd be some distrust. Like, it makes sense. There'd be some distrust. like, okay, so you're saying now this is okay, now this isn't masks work. The study in Sweden

says they don't. And there's debate over, did it come out of a lab? Did it not? You know, like all that crazy stuff. Yeah. And what I thought was interesting in Strange is in like the medical field, there seemed to be a split because a lot of people like Fauci were talking about, oh, you know, mask up and all that. But then there were definitely some doctors that did not agree with that. it's kind of like like there was a fights within authority type like figures and doctors if that makes sense which made it for me also more confusing and there was there I should sorry there were there there were people I respected doctors who are more on both sides who I knew when it comes to taking care of the human body knew more than I do so that made it confusing because I think the media on both

the left and right would be like you know oh these doctors are either they know more than you you should mask up or it's bad that you should mask up, but then it's confusing for me because it's like, well, there's people I respect who have both opinions. Yeah. I think what really frustrated a lot of people was just the unwillingness of public health officials and doctors to just simply say, I don't know. Yeah. Instead of saying, well, these are the facts and you can take them or leave them. And then the next week just completely flip-flopping, which did happen multiple times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think. think that people have maybe started to come to just a more level-headed and realistic

perception of doctors. They are just people. They don't know sometimes. And they aren't perfect. And a lot of them are really good and a lot of them are quite bad. Yeah. That's always something I feel mixed about is how it makes sense that doctors should be paid well, but it makes me uncomfortable that it seems some people who are doctors are doctors because of the profit they might make. Yes, that is that is certainly true, although I think that's becoming less true because, I mean, obviously it depends on what type of, like, what field you go into in particular. Like, you know, if you're a pediatrician, you're going to make a lot less than a surgeon. And like, even within certain types of surgery, there's just a huge difference. But like, that

certainly true. I think that in most cases you definitely do need to have a passion to actually be able to get through med school and like commit to it. I would assume that a lot of people who are not just not truly passionate about health in and of itself would drop out or just not be able to follow through. But yeah, there is a financial incentive. That is certainly true. And that's not true in all cases all the time, but aside from just the pay that doctors make, which, which in a lot of cases isn't that good. Like, it's, it's six figures, but it's a lot of times, like, lower end of the six figure spectrum. Like, you know, lots of doctors are just, like, middle class, middle class Americans. So they're not, like, they're not in the upper echelons of,

like, making a ton of money most of the time. Um, but, you. But, you. But, you. But, you. But, Yeah, there is a little bit of financial incentive in some cases. One study that I found, so this is from ProPublica, and the name of this one is doctors prescribe more of a drug if they receive money from a pharma company tied to it. Pharmaceutical companies have paid doctors billions of dollars for consulting promotional talks, meals, and more. A new ProPublica analysis finds doctors who received payments linked to specific drugs prescribed more of those drugs. So this is something that

happens. Doctors have a positive incentive to prescribe drugs. And if they don't have that incentive, they're less likely this study shows to prescribe those drugs. So if people are aware of this, if the public is aware of this, and I think a lot of people do know this, that doctors are more likely to prescribe a drug to you if they're being paid to do it, how can they trust the prescriptions that they're getting or what their doctor is advising them. If people think their doctor is paid off, and that's not always true, it's probably not even true in most cases, but if people are thinking, well, my doctor could be paid off, it's really hard to trust them, and that isn't actually addressed in this article, but it's certainly

something that happens. Yeah. Another thing that's interesting in this article is in the last line, she takes a quote from Rochester, a doctor who says she was only taken seriously after a medical staff found out she was a doctor when dealing with a fatherhood chronic conditions. And she is stated as since leaving clinical practice to become a health care advocate and consultant and saying, we need to be aware of the mistrust and own it as our problem. So she's claiming it's a lot of it's the fault of the doctors for not maybe forming good connection with their patients or acting. Is it? if they would know things that the patient wouldn't. And that's an interesting perspective, and that's different than what I hear a lot of other doctors claim. Yeah, a lot of people will sort of jump to,

maybe, for example, blame conspiracy theorists or something like that. And this, I don't think that this podcast or this article that we're talking about is really going to touch on that sort of stuff, because it's not super relevant, but that's sort of like a scapego. well, you know, the people who don't trust doctors are just getting their information off of TikTok or they, you know, believe in these conspiracy theories that people like RFK is spreading. And it's like, no, there are actual real concerns here that have nothing to do with conspiracy theories and are credible and based in, like, actual studies and research.

and in a lot of cases we're not really addressing them. Yeah. It's a strange mix, this kind of fear and distrust, where it's like maybe they're understanding it for the wrong conclusions, but you can understand the sentiment ultimately against the current system. Yeah, I think so. And I think even me personally, I'm starting to realize, like, I look around at, for example, when I was in high school,

I looked around to my peers and I was thinking, wow, I really hope a lot of these people don't become doctors because people are not putting a lot of effort into their studies. And I'm thinking, like, okay, when I get older, I'm undoubtedly going to have health issues. And it's going to be hard to find a good doctor. Because, like, think about how many people cheated on exams during the pandemic. my gosh. Like most people, like almost everybody cheated on exams. So there's a lot of just like, there's a lack of integrity. And people, that's clearer to people than ever. And I think especially our generation, we're going to, we're going to struggle. And so I think that is certainly going

to be an impetus for a lot of people to start taking care of their health and like working out and trying to eat healthy and everything because, I mean, it could get worse. Yeah. That's something that scares me, too, is I'm with you, seeing people around me that wanted to go to certain fields and thinking, oh, no, these are the people going into these fields. What does it mean when I have to be cared by them? Yeah. Well, getting back to Rochester, the pediatrician, she, in the article, it's also mentioned

that she knows that doctors themselves are frustrated by being measured and compensated by the number of patients seeing, so just some corporate way of you. things and spending time doing paperwork and arguing with insurance companies. So it's really weird because it sounds like all those regulations are in some ways making it harder for them to provide quality one-on-one dedicated to care, which is really unfortunate. So then you're seeing these extreme reactions against it and it's just like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, when you go to the doctor, every once in a while, you'll get a doctor who just wants to see you in and out, you know, just like get the appointment over with as quickly as possible.

I actually saw a study like a very long time ago, so I wouldn't be able to cite exactly where I saw it. But one of the things that talked about was just gender in the medical field and how women tend to spend more time getting to know the patient as an individual, as opposed to male doctors. And that helps them to actually be able to get to the bottom of what's going on more effectively, which I actually, I definitely have experienced that. to be the case for me personally. I can't speak for everyone, but I think that's definitely true that

the more time you spend, the better off you are going to be as a patient and as a doctor. But yeah, it's true. If you're just measuring a doctor's success by how many patients they see, well, that's not really a good metric. No, you should measure by how much they're helping the patient through whatever difficult medical struggles are going through. I don't like the numbers game. Yes. Yeah. Yep. So it's a tough situation. Yeah. Although people who say we should just go to socialized health care, there's problems with that system too or less private because it's one of those things where it feels like I don't know what the solution is. Because don't get me wrong. It's horrible having to pay money and go into debt. But at least you're pretty much guaranteed care in the, and the, you're US healthcare system. I've heard of cases in Canada or some family I have up there where it's like you have to wait to get care. And sometimes you have to wait for stuff that's like literally life-threatening. And I am speaking not with statistics in mind, knowing from like personal experience

that this is a thing, I would not be surprised if people in Canada have died before they could get care they needed, which is very disturbing to me. I mean, obviously there's people who have died from medical malpractice and whatnot in America too and probably maybe from not getting to the hospital in time. But I don't think that issue is quite as bad. So I'm not sure what the best system is. But I don't think socialized is necessarily one either, especially when the U.S. is such a diverse country in terms of the people that make it up, that, you know, it's harder to have it work than Denmark where most people are. like the same, you know, ethnicity, the same weight, even the same lifestyle. I'm not saying it's bad or good, but you can't be as collective when the population is so diverse in how you take

care of people. Well, that's all we have time for today. You're listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Vreeny and I'm here with Sophia Mant.