Conventional medicine has raised a gold standard over the years, a bar which no other form of alternative medicine can reach, a basis founded upon a scientific regimen that can be deduced, rationalized and replicated. Yet, apparently in our present health crisis, of health care costs and maintenance, there are large numbers of people who are dissatisfied and angered with the role medicine has been playing with our lives. Chronic complaints of constant medication, where one would be dependent on a statin, anti-depressant, tranquilizer or other so as to maintain regular levels, mood, or sleep, come from a variety of patients, who do not want a dependence in order to reach a state of health. Other options are barely discussed as the magic pill for the ailment is usually prescribed. Quick assessments and visits that last a few minutes are typical, and these complaints are a growing concern for a majority of patients. The answers that are readily given to them from their practitioners are “surgery” and “drugs”. There are also many other fears that accompany such as complications, side-effects, hospitalization, hospital acquired diseases, as well as opaque terminology that doesn’t mean anything except to the practitioner. Terms that carry little meaning outside of conventional medicine hold little sway to someone who only knows his constant pain that he/she carries every day. And even then with the naming of the illness, it can attach a stigma, an exclusion, as well as other fears, and then mortality rates, percentages, and other figures. The person then is seen only as a bearer of said illness, and is treated as such, until all signs and
symptoms of said illness is relieved or eliminated.
The body is forgotten as an Integrative system. The patient also forgotten as such, since the care for the individual is no longer as to maintain his health and well-being but just to eliminate what may be bothering him/her. Emphasis is forgotten on lifestyle changes, and other measures, where the individual can be coached to a better state of living. The doctor has little time to invest in his patients, for the goal is to eliminate the illness with results of blood tests, and composite imaging that can only paint a picture of the patient’s health. I’m not saying that all doctors are like this, but we can all agree, that the majority look to paint their own assumption as to how the patient will feel or feels.
The burden of prevention falls on the patient, who would have to search for himself some way to adapting his/her lifestyle for relief, where many won’t due to the fact that they have been living for certain ways for so long. Very quickly, the original foundation of medicine is forgotten “Heal thyself”
Even so with the scientific rational and argumentative research, most studies are taken on face value, few are tested and tried, for replicable results. The declining effect with medication also is a factor as in whether drugs are really the solution. As the body further becomes accustomed to the pharmaceutical its effect is lessened. And there are people who have been taking the same medications for more than 10 years. What has been forgotten is that we have to treat the whole patient, reduce the amount of suffering he/she may have, and to close the gap between practitioner, and patient through the best means of communications, that their lifestyle would be for the better than when they came in.
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Edwin Alvarez 