4. Doctors spend too little time explaining how
to relieve stress.
Probably… Stress makes everything worse
but doesn’t cause anything. Seeing a doctor for stress results from what I call
the “medicalization of society” - the notion that life’s difficulties (a
hateful job, unsatisfying sex life, shyness) represent a medical problem.
There’s no harm in this; a good doctor can listen sympathetically and make
sensible suggestions which require no medical training.
5. Doctors don’t pay much attention to diet,
rest, exercise, and other natural methods of treating illnesses.
True and proper. Diet, rest, etc. play an
essential part in preventing disease but drop to minor roles once you get
sick... A perfect example were tuberculosis sanitariums, the oldest government
supported medical program. They began appearing in the nineteenth century.
Patients received nutritious food and plenty of rest in a healthy, rural
environment. They were discharged (sometime
after years) when their TB became inactive. No one was cured, and many
relapsed. When drugs appeared after 1945 sanitariums vanished. Nowadays doctors
encourage TB patients to eat a nutritious diet, but they’ll get better even if
they don’t – provided they take their drugs.
6. Doctors ignore alternative and folk medical
practices.
I notice enthusiasts treat folk medicine
with respect, but no one advocates folk dentistry...
In fact, many alternative practices work
but less dramatically than advocates claim.
Acupuncture definitely relieves pain. Unfortunately, its action is
unpredictable and not always complete. Despite vivid reports, Chinese surgeons
rarely use it in place of anesthesia... Chiropractic manipulation relieves some
backaches for a limited time.
The better doctors handle a problem, the
less you’ll read about “alternative” treatments. Your local health food store
doesn’t sell an herbal remedy for appendicitis. Don’t laugh. Appendicitis is
fatal; until a century ago victims died after weeks of agony. Then we
discovered that snipping off the appendix (something any bright high school
student can do) cured it. Today no one searches for an alternative treatment of
appendicitis.
On the other hand, doctors don’t do so
well treating obesity, arthritis, aging, or senility. So if you want to find an
alternative remedy that doctors have stupidly ignored, you’ll find plenty. Good luck with them.