What Patients Expect And What Medicine Actually Delivers
In this medical culture we have created an army of patients that are dependent on our existence (job security? no, of course not!). They live unhealthy lives completely out of tune with their bodies. They create diseases in their bodies and in their minds and then come to us looking for a solution. They have the impression that advances in medicine and technology can fix their problems.
The common patients first is looking for a definitive test that will accurately diagnose what they have. They then look for the specialist or specialized treatment that can fix that problem. This of course creates a cycle of creating problems and dependency on treatments. Patients become reliant on tests, medications and surgeries.
If the first doctor doesn’t have the solution they will just go to the next doctor. They will follow society’s motto that whatever doctor advertises the most and makes the biggest claims must be the best. Oh look, that doctor has 5 stars on xyz website… wow, their office looks so nice… oh that doctor graduated from Harvard… Oh look, that doctor has an arthritis center.
The doctor that tells the patient to go home and lose weight and exercise is a quack. The doc that will prescribe them atorvastatin and benazepril is an evidence based practitioner. They will go back to the doctor that is willing to order repeat LDL’s and A1C’s so the patient can keep track of their health.
Thousands of individuals are treated in order to prevent one bad outcome. Thousands are injected with chemo medication so that there is that one cure. Multiple meniscus surgeries and knee scopes are done to help that one patient be pain-free.
I have always been such a western medicine kind of guy and I am finding myself leaning more and more towards eastern medicine. I am not talking about potions and voodoo shit, but more that holistic whole-system’s approach.
Are the patients to blame for wanting quick fixes? Or are the doctors to blame for not empowering patients enough? Or is the legal system to blame for not protecting the doctors when they want to practice healing medicine?