How to Survive a Visit to Your Doctor

Because it is well established that modern medicine is now the leading cause of death, living through a trip to your doctor or local hospital is no small feat. You almost need a survival course before you venture into this world of high technology, high cost, and low accountability called “modern medicine”. Medicine has become virtually obsessed with drugs. Drugs are today's most influential consumer product. Drugs have side-effects, many of which are more serious than the condition for which the drug was intended to treat.

Prescription medication is not the only dangerous part of medicine of course. Many surgical procedures are fraught with danger and dubious, often disastrous outcomes. Even some of the tests work against your well-being. Much has been written that questions the risk/reward ratio of many common testing procedures ranging from biopsies, to spinal taps, to mammograms.

I can't offer a survival course in these few lines; however, I can offer some advice that may save your life, or at least, may help you avoid a whole passel of pain and suffering that could result form ill-advised and perhaps unnecessary medical intervention.

The words of wisdom that I offer my readers are the 4 B's. Next time you need to visit a doctor or hospital, please consider following this bit of advice:

• Be informed
• Be assertive
• Be skeptical
• Above all - Be proactive

Be skeptical. There's simply no excuse for placing blind faith in doctors the way our parents did. It didn't do a lot of them much good now did it? It's not for nothing that we are living longer. Although we have a long way to go, we, at least to a partial degree, opened our minds and looked at what we are eating, drinking and breathing to a much larger extent than did our parents. As a consequence to that bit of self-awareness, we now take vitamins, try to watch our weight and we exercise much more diligently, as a group, than did the last generation. I know I'm generalizing here, but, as a whole, our parents trusted their doctors implicitly. I suppose this absolute faith came from living through horrendous disease epidemics and seeing people die from simple infectious diseases that made the early vaccination programs and penicillin seem like miracles. And although procedures such as heart by-pass and joint replacement surgery are quite miraculous, we really should regard them more like a reprieve. Could these surgeries simply become license for us to live badly knowing that we can be absolved later?

Be assertive. Trust what your intuition is telling you. Ask plenty of questions and, based on your reading, and the experience of others, ask yourself if what you're hearing makes sense to you. Don't lose sight of the fact that doctors, clinicians, pharmacists and hospitals are ultimately businesses whose livelihood depends on selling services. This is where a healthy dose of skeptism kicks in. Don't be afraid to be skeptical.

I often think of buying medical services in the light of buying a car. If you were as poorly informed about cars as you are about medicine, you would walk onto a car lot and tell the salesperson that you want a car. Naturally, s/he would lead right to the deluxe model; the one with all the luxury options. You, knowing nothing about the process would agree that this car, indeed, is the one you need. It is the nature of salespeople to sell you the most expensive items that they have to offer. Could it not be the same with doctors? Until you say to the car salesperson that you want a more economical model or perhaps a second choice, s/he will continue to upsell you. Why not ask your doctor for alternatives? Shop around. Get other opinions.

My most important ‘B' is: Be proactive. Don't take your good health for granted. Do things to preserve and maintain it. Again read and study. Without your health, most of your other possessions are poor substitutes for life. Don't simply wait until you have a diagnosis and then grab at straws. Usually by then, it's too late to do anything proactive. After you get a diagnosis, you're at the mercy of the medical system, and anything you attempt after that is simply reactive.

Author Contact Info: David Phillips D.C.
http://miltonchiropractic.chiroweb.com/