A few week’s ago a friend’s father checked into the hospital. He said he felt “tired.” A couple weeks later his family buried him.
Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me. The older generation have been given so many nutrient-blocking medications (like antacids) and antidepressants (see Trends in Antidepressant Prescriptions Among the Elderly, The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry). By the time you reach your 50s, 60s and 70s many doctors act as if they are conducting an autopsy when you show up at a hospital.
An autopsy! Have you ever felt like you’ve been treated as if you’ve already passed on? Or possibly you have witnessed this type of approach given to a family member? It’s not in your imagination. It’s real!
The patient has a problem and we doctors are “going to figure out what’s wrong.” That’s the diagnosis-and-treat-with-drugs-and-surgery approach they taught me in medical school. It’s very similar to the approach of “they died, what caused it?” that a forensic specialist would use.
“Would You Kindly Fit Into One of
These Boxes We’ve Selected for You?”
Medical doctors start with the biggie… cancer. If they can’t find a growth, then heart disease or diabetes. By the time they’ve gone down the list you’ve been shocked into believing you may carry a whole assortment of horrible illnesses.
And many doctors get frustrated with the patient when their symptoms won’t fit into the cancer box or the heart disease box or the kidney failure box. And the patient now feels bad because they’ve “let their doctor down.” For so many reasons they don’t want their doctor to get “mad at them.” (When you’ve put your life in someone else’s hands – having them mad at your does feel a little undesirable.)
I dare say patients will comply to the point of a developing cancer or heart disease of diabetes or whichever disease will allow the doctor to say, “That’s it, we found it. Now take this pill.”
Or, if they don’t find something, then it’s all in your head and you get to take another kind of pill. That’s what they tried to do to my client in Pennsylvania until she realized that the drugs were creating most of her problems.
Insanity! This is not the time to act “humble” and develop some disease or swallow some medicine that doesn’t make you feel right (and does nothing to cure you, anyway).
Vice versa, we can’t rant about how the medical system has failed us and avoid it completely.
Truth is… even in its current “for-profit” state — we still need it. Especially, as you get older. You need the tests and labs and diagnostic technology. You need the emergency room if you run into an accident. And, in certain cases, you need their medicines.
But You Don’t Need to Play the Doormat
Take advantage of this messed-up health care system to develop discrimination, confidence and self-respect. Don’t blindly follow any doctor – alternative or allopathic.
Remember you have the right to make your own decisions. Remember the doctor is here to serve you, not the other way around. Believe in yourself. At the end of the day your doctor’s not going to suffer the consequences of whatever decisions you make or let someone else make about your health..
Carolyn Dean MD ND
The Doctor of the Future®
RESOURCES: Along the borders and in the links of my web site you can find my books, writings, and my call-in radio show. Email your questions to: questions@drcarolyndeanlive.com.
