When the day of reckoning comes, will we doctors have done more harm than good? My guess is that the score will be less impressive than we would like it to be.
Doctors have control over powerful tools, the knife and drugs, which can damage us as well as interfere with disease effectively. If you are about to have a tooth out under general anaesthetic, is the lack of discomfort worth the risk of an anaesthetic death, however rare this event? This choice and decision is not the dentist’s – it is yours. And how can you make it, if you don’t know that fit and healthy people have died, while having their teeth out under general anaesthesia?
When, with discernment, we assess treatments offered, when we are given accurate information about harms and benefits, unfortunate events will happen far less often. We need better information and information that is digestible. We need independent bodies with access to the raw data of drug company experiments, for example, so they can come up with numbers we can all understand.
We also need to be more like my mum.
“Doctor what’s this pill for?”
“It’s to reduce the swelling in your legs Mrs Bell”.
“I have been taking then for many months and my legs are just as swollen”. Is there any other reason for me taking them? If there isn’t, I won’t bother with them, thanks”. I was with her. I was silently cheering her on.
“That’s fine Mrs Bell.
Medicine is a powerful tool which we can use to our advantage. The technicians of this industry have a lot to offer us. I am grateful that they exist, as I for one would be dead but for the abilities of a surgeon, anaesthetist and the nurses. Orthodox medicine is a beautiful creation which is too often used inappropriately.
Does mammography save lives? See this video. An emotive issue and a complex one to look into. The answers are not black and white. There is much uncertainty; and demanding, expecting and hoping for certainty may lead us down unpleasant rabbit holes.
We should stop being under any doctor and jump up on the horse with him or her. S/he may know more about what they do than you do, for sure, but not by any stretch what is best for you. The decision is not theirs, it’s yours and mine.
