Health Care Should Focus on Wellness & Prevention First, NOT Drugs & Surgery

I know some of you think doctors have all the answers. I want to make it clear that I'm not against doctors. In fact, if I or my family are ever in a situation of critical care, like a car accident, for example, I would pray that I would have access to a knowledable and competent physcian.

And not all doctors are "evil." I think most are great people, doing the best they can, trying to help people the best way they know how. But the system they are in has sort of gotten in the way and they can't or don't always have our best interests in mind.

Recently a relative told me about visiting an older friend in the hospital after undergoing heart surgery. The lady, after undergoing the surgery to clean a valve in her heart that was clogged the day before, was now eating a meal of beef, chocolate pudding and rice smoothered in gravy, and this was in the hospital. How do our arteries get clogged? Is this just a phenomenon that happens due to age? No, it comes from the foods we eat. Not really quite rocket science, but I wonder why this lady was fed the same foods that got her into the hospital in the first place. Hmmmm....hospitals/doctors have our best interests in mind, do they?

There was a very interesting article that came out in the Deseret Morning News today titled "State tries medical reform." Utah, the state in which I happen to live, is striving for medical reform, but as the article points out, there's no fixing a system that didn't exist in the first place. Dr. Todd Mangum, a family practice doctor in SLC, points out,

There isn't a health-care system to save because one doesn't exist [...] Start
calling it what it is--a disease-care system. It is not and never has been
a health-care system [...] look at what happens when you go to the
doctor: You come in sick, and you are treated as the disease you have,
not as a person with a medical problem. The system is all about masking
with pills or cutting. It's nothing about why (italics added) you
are sick.

The article goes on to explain how the system must change because as it is, it is barely functional on so many levels, the most obvious being financial. "It's barely staying afloat under the weight of the hyper-inflated costs of its million-and-one-more procedures, screening, testing, surgeries and medications. Much of the testing and procedures have, at best, uncertain outcomes. Nearly every new outcome study assesses medical intervention as redundant or even risky," the article reads.

Essentially, the days of "my doctor is my concierge" are gone. If you care about your health and the health of your family, it is imperative to take your health into your own hands first. Many people go to the doctor, expecting to be told what to do, and trusting that whatever the doctor says is the best way. Most times, that couldn't be further from the truth.

One thing to keep in mind is that doctors have malpractice lawsuits to worry about, are courted by pharmaceutical companies to peddle their specific drugs to patients (even if the patient does not need it), are limited in time and resources so they will often take the quickest route (prescribe the drug and get the patient off their back) so these factors all play into the type of care given to the patient.

Putting your trust in your doctor to guide you safely to land of health, wellness, and happiness is a slippery slope. It's the placebo effect. A lot of good feelings, but in reality, it can be pretty worthless. Because the one who holds the key to your health and wellness is, well you. Lifestyle and dietary choices can mostly prevent the top 3 killers in the U.S. which are #1, heart disease, #2 cancer (read The China Study if you don't believe me), #3 medical care (you read that right, drugs and surgeries gone awry, infections picked up at the hospital, ect.).

We all want to believe that cancer and disease, obesity, and high cholesterol are a result of some mystical force, the stars wrongly aligning, our parent's bad genes, or other uncontrollable forces. Well you can keep on believing that, but it won't get you very far.

I think the better route is for us to all get of our couches and do something about the rotten state of health a lot of find ourselves in through poor dietary and lifestyle choices.

The article concludes by quoting Dr. Magnum, who talking about the broken health-care system says:

Right now [...] it's like the fire alarm is going off and the fire department is
focusing on stopping the noise, not the fire, then wanting to spend a lot
more money for more firefighters and better alarms.

Well put, Dr. Magnum, well put. I couldn't have said it better.