Adopted from TIME Magazine - May, ‘06
"While there are bad doctors practicing bad medicine who go undetected, that's not what scares other physicians the most. Instead, they have watched the system become deformed over the years by fear of litigation, by insurance costs, by rising competition, by billowing bureaucracy and even by improvements in technology that introduce new risks even as they reduce old ones."
Long gone are the days of going to a doctor who utilizes his time and training to make the best decisions regarding your health. No one knows this more then your doctor. They time their own procedures based on how long doctors have been out of school realizing that if they're too new, they lack experience, but if not new enough, they're knowledge is outdated. The strong resistance to treatment, hospitals, taking drugs, or going to a doctor at all sends home a very powerful message of extreme caution to all of us.
"It requires almost a stroke of luck to enter a U.S. hospital and receive precisely the right treatment - no more, and no less. A landmark Rand Corp. study published in 2003 found that adults in the U.S. received, on average, just 54.9% of recommended care for their conditions."
In other words, there’s just better than a 50/50 chance you won't be harmed or the victim of negligence when you see the doctor. . .your doctor. We live in hazardous times when it comes to medicine. While, in the case of an emergency like a tumor, clogged artery, kidney stone, or compound fracture, medical technology is beyond amazing. But, something like knowing which side of your brain to operate on or conservatively treating a simple childhood illness - can cause mega problems. "A patient with anything but the simplest needs is traversing a very complicated system across many handoffs and locations and players," says Dr. Donald Berwick, a pediatrician and president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. "And as the machine gets more complicated, there are more ways it can break."
Without question, over treatment is the most critical problem. Doctors afraid of "missing something" and insurance that rewards testing, surgery, and expensive drugs creates a "dangerous impulse towards excess." Any good doctor knows when a cyst on your ankle or wrist is not a tumor and if they see a healthy child with a cough, then agreeing to surgery and antibiotics is potentially a risk worse than the condition.
You just can't beat working on being healthy vs. treating illness with drugs and surgery. While there are some magical medial solutions to emergencies out there, every day we learn that the field of medicine is replete with dysfunctions, conflicts of interest, overt concern for profit, and the bottom line: dangerous chemicals. Getting sick is a risky proposition. Invest today in your health. You may not like eating well and exercising. You might not have the time for them either. You may be "anti-alternative," against things that are different like chiropractic and nutritional support. However, if you want to prosper later, you invest now. If you don't have time and are "too busy" then you are too busy. Additionally, it's time to wake up to the fact that the way we do things doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. Even a doctor won't see a doctor. Alternatives are only alternatives because people are all doing something else. In this case, what they're doing has been a lesson in pain and failure.
LET'S SAVE THE WORLD TOGETHER. IF WE WON’T, THEN WHO WILL? PLEASE TELL THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW AND LOVE ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED HERE IN THIS OFFICE.
Your Maximized Health Mentor,
