On being overly cautious...

I just want to share a little email correspondence between my wife and I regarding our youngest son, whom I had to pick up early on Tuesday.  I started off the email:

 

When I dropped off Matthew @ daycare this morning Sandy asked me if Matthew was all better.  I said he was and that he hadn't had a fever all day yesterday, and what fever he did have on Tuesday was minor.  She then asked me what the doctor said.  I was kind of stunned by that and said "I'm not taking him to the doctor for that.  I'm not going to pay a $25 copay for that."  I don't think I need to pay $25 for somebody, even a professional, to tell me something I already know.  It's allergies.  Life goes on. 

 

I was just so stunned that it made me think about how some people feel the need to go to the doctor for any little thing that goes wrong.  You know, as grown ups who have been to the doctor before they should know that a fever is not necessarily bad; it's just a sign that the body is fighting something off.  And given Matthew's lackluster symptoms, it was no big deal.  Furthermore, the whole concept behind the copay is so people won't be inclined to go to the doctor for every little thing.  When I got in this morning Mindi was talking about how she took her son to the doctor recently and it turned out it was just allergies and the doctor gave her some free samples.  Ooh.  It still took a copay to get in there, and what he gave her probably would have cost less by itself than the copay.

 

Yeah, I'm not taking him to the doctor for something that's either allergies or a virus, because there's nothing the doctor can do anyway. It's wasted money. You would think childcare providers would know the difference between a cold, allergies, and something serious, but evidently that's not the case. Pretty stupid in my book.

Yeah.

 

I wonder how much of it is being slave to government money and working in an industry that is well-regulated, and how much of it is this paranoia that so many people have about taking their kids to the doctor anytime something is wrong because they "just want to make sure it's not something serious."  While that's good logic by itself and in some contexts can serve a good purpose, in this context it's overly cautious. 

 

I find this logic similar to the notion that anytime a mistake happens, something should be done so it never happens again.  While this is good logic by itself and can serve a good purpose depending on the mistake, in some contexts it seems overly cautious.

 

I completely agree. :)