Medicine is Not

What to do when the healthcare system is a mess ?

Yes the healthcare system is a mess.

If you read Common Sense Health and Wellness then you know this has been a recent topic of mine.

Since I have been in practice starting back in the mid 1990s, I have seen the healthcare system DEVOLVE into a third party corporate government colluded and controlled industrial complex that appears more concerned with growing their power and profits than with your health.

I know. That was a mouthful or an earful or an eyeful or whatever you want to call it.

Let’s call the healthcare system what it truly is.

Not Healthcare.

Not ObamaCare.

Not TrumpCare.

Not BidenCare.

I think what fits is if we call it Dysfunction-Care.

Dysfunction-Care is what has occurred over the past 30 years but has accelerated more rapidly over the past 15 years. It’s almost like you are rolling down a hill picking up speed and your brakes don’t work.

There are still great parts of our healthcare system.

I believe the majority of healthcare professionals are caring and well trained.

Butt, and there is always a butt in healthcare, most healthcare professionals are controlled or captured by the system they work within. They are controlled/captured by Dysfunction-Care.

Healthcare professionals are no longer asked to critically think. They are just told to follow the rules and regulations of Dysfunction-Care, which again were not made for your care but instead for Dysfunction-Care PPC (power, profits and control).

Don’t get mad at me for saying it. I’m just putting out what I have seen from my 30+ years of experience.

I do believe that if left alone to do the right thing without any pressure, coercion, threats or mandates, that our healthcare professionals would be the best in the world.

To be the best they need the freedom to act and do what is right for each individual knowing that no two individuals are the same.

So what is medicine, and by that I mean your interaction with the healthcare community?

I believe Medicine is an Art.

What is Medicine NOT, or what should medical care NOT be?

• Medicine is NOT an Evidenced Based Medicine (EBM) criteria.

• Medicine is not what is written in your electronic medical record.

• Medicine is NOT a color by numbers painting.

• Medicine is NOT a computer AI algorithm.

• Medicine is NOT a political budget to be used to increase power.

• Medicine is NOT a political ploy for votes.

• Medicine is NOT a means to corporate profits.

• Medicine is NOT mandates.

• Medicine is NOT about threats.

• Medicine is NOT about peer pressure.

• Medicine is NOT about coercion.

So I will ask again.

What is medicine, and by that I mean your interaction with the healthcare community?

Medicine should be about helping each unique individual achieve their best health, however we get there, that is safe, effective and of their choosing.

Dysfunction-Care however seems to be stuck in a Sick-Care spiral. They say they are about preventive care, but just about every criteria they put out to “improve” your health is biased towards some organization gaining PPC.

Power, Profits and Control.

Examples:

• Let’s check your cholesterol so we can prescribe you a statin medication even though lowering cholesterol is an extremely weak intervention in reducing heart disease.

• Let’s check a DEXA bone density scan so we can prescribe you expensive medications to make your bones “appear” stronger, even if your fracture risk barely budges.

• Let’s do an EKG so if abnormal we can then do an echocardiogram, a stress test and even a cardiac catheterization. As most of these tests come out OK, that is good, but now you have a Cardiologist who wants to see you annually and repeat many tests until you need further intervention at some point, hopefully in the very distant future. But in the meantime take these cholesterol and Blood pressure pills every day and follow up with us every 1-3 months.
  

You are now locked into Dysfunction-Care.

They got ya!

You are trapped!

You are now worried/anxious/fearful if you do not follow their instructions that something bad will happen to your health. Your emotions have been played upon.

It’s almost like the more tests we do, the more tests we continue to do, the more medications and other interventions we do, the more Dysfunction-Care profits from labeling you as needing medical care.

OK, please don’t get me wrong.

I truly believe most healthcare professionals believe in what they are doing. They truly want to help you. But I think most of them don’t realize they are the frog in a pot of water (Dysfunction-Care) that is slowly heating up to boiling, and they don’t even know it until it is too late.

What else?

I do NOT believe a non-profit healthcare system can thrive on its own.

I also do NOT believe there should be outrageous profits in Dysfunction-Care especially when hidden and guarded behind backroom political deals.

The best type of healthcare system should contain the following:

• Freedom to choose your healthcare team

• A true focus on individual health and uniqueness

• No bias in education

• No bias in treatment options

• A support system so everyone who needs true care can get it, without harming others who also need care

All of the above is why I left Dysfunction-Care in 2008 and created my own model of healthcare known in my neck of the woods as the Institute for Medical Wellness (IMW).

At the IMW:

We focus on individuals.

We focus on truly improving your health not just putting out fires.

We focus on thinking outside the box when needed.

We focus on avoiding as much bias as possible.

We focus on looking for root causes of ill health.

We focus on helping our members to live in a healthier way to reduce their reliance on medications.

We focus on helping our members to live in a healthier way to slow down the aging process.

We focus on helping our members need less of Dysfunction-Care because they learn how to implement a healthier lifestyle.

We focus on teaching you how to live healthy.

We teach you how to reduce your reliance on Dysfunction-Care.

We teach you how to get and maintain your medical freedoms because if you learn how to be healthy, you avoid Dysfunction-Care.

The choice is yours.

Your healthcare professionals should work for you. You get to choose. You get to ask as many questions as necessary to be involved in your decision making.

Remember that with your next interaction with Dysfunction-Care.

If you just go along to get along, don’t be surprised if you are not the healthiest you could be moving forward.

I often feel like the black sheep in the medical profession.

That’s OK.

I felt that way more and more over the past few years.

But it is OK.

We still live in a free country, right?

We can make the change to better health one person at a time.