CAN YOU TRUST YOUR DOCTOR?
Your doctor has the best intentions, but their hands are tied by the system they work for.
Read on to discover more about:
Doctors as human beings.
How the health system they work for isn't designed for your long term health.
What the health system is really good at.
And when you can actually trust your doctor and the health system (because sadly you can't always trust them whole-heartedly…yet).
Doctors are some of the smartest, most hardworking, caring people we have on earth.
They deserve our highest appreciation and admiration. But there's more to your doctor than meets the eye.
They endure the ruthless world of becoming a doctor: years of schooling, sleepless nights, 90 hour work weeks at residency, stress of mounting debt, social pressures, and jump through many other required hoops. Throughout it all they keep their vision of changing the world by helping people at the center of their minds.
As they see it if they can just make it through the med student grind and come out on the other side with a nice long white coat and an M.D. engraved next to their name, they would be free to really begin making a difference in peoples lives and it'll all be worth it. But…
A doctor's post-grad reality isn't often what they dreamed of.
What many of them later discover is that donning that white lab coat doesn't give them the power and freedom of the queen on the chessboard, righting wrongs and healing their fellow humans, but anoints them instead only as a pawn to a system with a different goal: profits.
This system is made up of big hospitals, drug companies, and insurance companies. All with the governments' backing. They are the big players on the board, making the big moves and decisions.
Our valiant Pawn M.D. —as we'll call our new doctor— soon finds that they must work long hours with little sleep, and are allotted only seven minutes with each of their patients. They must also master the skill of figuring out how many insurance codes they can tack on to each of those seven minute appointments.
Because the more codes Pawn M.D. enters the more money the hospital makes.
The hospital in turn rewards their pawn with pay bonuses, provided Pawn M.D. reaches certain productivity quotas. Pawn M.D. scores the most points when they prescribe long term drugs and surgeries to their patients, which are the big money makers for the system. The system doesn't actually make much money when people get well. Currently, the system has found profound methods for driving profits through incentivizing and even “educating” doctors.
The system has infiltrated doctors education.
Then Pawn M.D. begins to realize that from the very beginning they were being primed to comply with the systems' goals during their medical education. Medical schools are heavily sponsored by drug companies and their top educators are highly trained surgeons.
These surgeons learned that in order to "make it" as a doctor in this system you must specialize in one part of the body and perform surgeries and other interventions on it. That's who gets rewarded with the big money, the prestige, and with the longest white coat.
No joke: the longer your white coat, the higher your status in the hospital world.
The drug companies have an interest, of course, to get their drugs prescribed as much as possible.
And so it is that Pawn M.D. is trained by the very system that profits the most when its' pawns diagnose their patients with a chronic (long lasting) condition like diabetes or heart disease and prescribe life-long drugs, or a condition to be fixed with surgeries.
A doctor's internal conflict
Pawn M.D. is aware that the prevention and treatment of most chronic diseases lie heavily in the lifestyle factors of their patients like diet and exercise, but they were only taught nutrition during medical school for a whopping 24 hours. There is also a next to zero chance of helping a patient learn about their health within their seven minute appointment times.
Besides, even if Pawn M.D. wanted to change how they treated their patients, deviating from the system's status quo and policies, they risk losing their livelihood and the respect of their compliant peers.
Tow the line, or lose everything you've worked for.
This is the predicament that puts Pawn M.D. into a state of internal conflict: wanting the best for their patients, but restricted in their movements and ability to truly help them.
Pawn M.D.'s hands are tied. At least until the system changes.
Can patients trust their doctors?
So what about you, the patient of Pawn M.D.? Can you trust your doctor?
The answer is yes!… and no.
First, you must realize that your doctor has the best intentions. They are also very smart and know a lot about the human body. On the flip side, you must also realize that they are human, and have blind spots.
What our modern health system is really good at is fixing acute health issues.
An acute health condition is one that can be severe but is of short duration: seasonal sickness, infections, and injuries are good examples of acute conditions.
Trust your doctor with acute conditions with all your heart.
The biggest blindspot for doctors is chronic disease management and prevention.
Chrono is greek for time. So a chronic condition or disease is one that developed slowly, persists for a long period of time, and doesn't go away easily.
Examples of chronic dieases are:
Diabetes
Heart disease
Obesity
Cancer
Arthritis
Alzheimer's disease
This is a blindspot for doctors because the best methods of prevention and treatment for these conditions aren't taught well in medical school — because they do not make much money for the system.
If you are diagnosed with a chronic condition listen to your doctor, but also do your own research.
For your best health outcomes it is important that you become informed on conditions you have (or want to avoid). Research lifestyle factors that are linked to these conditions. Usually these lifestyle factors are related to physical activity, sleep, diet, and environmental toxins. Treat yourself with these lifestyle changes. These are things your doctor cannot help you much with.
There are times when lifestyle factors alone won't get you the changes you need quickly enough. Educate yourself on when seeking your doctors help with drugs or other interventions is necessary for your health.
The ideal situation would be that an intervention or drug is a last resort or only temporary to help you get your health on track.
Remember, your doctor wants to help you, and they will do so in the best ways that they can. But they've had their hands tied by the system and are thus limited in that capability…like a pawn on the chessboard.
My sincere hope is for Pawn M.D. to be promoted within the system because they are the true advocates and first line of defense for their patients.
But until your doctors are more empowered to help you with chronic conditions….
Optimal health starts with your self education and your lifestyle.
P.S. Food for thought
Directly following his famous warnings of the military-industrial complex during his farewell address in 1961, Dwight D Eisenhower warned of a scientific complex that closely resembles our current medical system:
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
-Dwight D Eisenhower
Watch his entire speech here: https://youtu.be/mHDgsh6WPyc
