Peculiarities of US medicine

[tattooofhername]

Can a person not currently suffering from appendicitis go to a doctor in the USA and ask to have their appendix removed? Would it get done? I figure insurance wouldn't cover it because it's not considered necessary, but I'm more curious about if a surgical team would even say 'yeah okay we'll do that' and schedule it for a healthy person.

For context, the character is planning to travel by container ship out of Boston and most of the way around the world, and is concerned about what might happen if something goes bad during the journey. Money is not an issue, but I want to make sure an American reader won't be there rolling their eyes and saying 'like that would ever happen!'

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Seems like it's done for that exact reason: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5209958/

And even before I looked that up, I thought of the wide range in how easy or hard it is to get a hysterectomy, or various gender affirmation surgical procedures, depending on the doctor. And I thought, sure, you could probably find a doctor who'd sign off on the referral and a surgeon who would do it.

So I think it will be plausible to readers, though you might get some readers who haven't been able to get the surgery they need for love or money, and they might have a different perspective.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I think it's a plausible thing to happen, but also, a lot of people would be unfamiliar with the idea. Much more familiar is the whole "first do no harm" principle of medicine, so the idea that performing abdominal surgery that isn't medically necessary IS a good thing -- under certain circumstances -- might require a bit of dialogue.

(The doc is unlikely to sign off on a surgery if he doesn't get a good reason, even if the "customer" is paying cash, so you do have the opportunity to include that dialogue. There are surgeries you can get just because you want to, but appendix removal is not one of them.)

[ariaflame]

I know that at least a while ago and probably still if you're going to be stationed in Antarctica you got your appendix out first, because if it ruptured while you were down there you were dead.

[pauraque]

I believe the same is recommended for astronauts.

[nineveh_uk]

I bet Leonid Rogozov wished he had!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32481442

[fred_mouse]

Rogozov is exactly who I thought of when I read this question!

[zenigotchas]

Driving by to comment that your duckling icon is adorable. Wish I could just reach out and pet it.

[krait]

Oddly enough, this exact situation came up with some people with whom I was chatting at a convention last weekend! One of them had her appendix removed because she asked her doctor about it - she was extremely anxious about it one day requiring emergency removal, and her doctor agreed to do a preventative removal (and to record that it was medically necessary, so her insurance would cover it). I didn't grill her on the details or anything, but it sounded as though there was no particular cause to her anxiety about it (no mention of family history, no discussion of a medical condition that might increase the odds, etc.), it was just a longstanding fear of hers. Someone in the conversation mentioned reading about appendicitis/emergency appendectomy as a kid and it making a permanent impression on them, but I don't recall if it was her, explaining how long she'd been worrying about it, or someone else offering sympathy.

So for what it's worth, I'd say that it's certainly possible, as long as the character has a sympathetic doctor.

[shaggy]

Insurance plans generally require procedures be medically necessary to provide coverage, so a member would pick up the full cost of an elective procedure like this. The examples provided for people working in Antarctica or in space are not the typical experience.