I’m not exactly in this position, but I think it is somewhat adjacent. I have stage 4 prostate cancer and after initial treatment (chemo + castration) decided to stop seeing my urologist for periodic checkups. I do regularly get my blood tested by a lab outside of our (European) healthcare system.
This was not exactly due to the establishment being “wrong”, but a combination of factors:
Quality of care wasn’t great and I can’t stand the paternalistic nature of healthcare (in my country).
After five months of pretty intensive self study and an occasional question to my doctor I felt that I had a sufficient understanding to improve my treatment beyond “standard of care”. It probably helps a bit that my brother is a doctor.
Three and a half years after diagnosis I’m doing better than expected, but of course there is no way to tell if this is due to luck or my own treatment.
At first I was a bit frustrated that none of my doctors seem to care, but I understand that they’ve been thoroughly trained to ignore anecdotes (and they’re probably also overworked).
I feel it important to mention that I’m not into alternative medicine. I got my GP to prescribe off label medication and the rest is just lifestyle adjustments (diet and exercise).
Feel free to ask me questions.
I have terminal cancer and have believed in AGI doom for much longer than I’ve know I have cancer. Neither of these things made me depressed. Perhaps that is because I’m pretty close to an existentialist.
I would also like to add that even if you’re not making long-term investments (I’m certainly not), maintaining good health (as best you can) is always worthwhile because it directly leads to higher quality of life.