Some of Mama Vic’s doctor kids need a lesson or two on doctoring.
• Lesson 1 – Your job is to diagnose first and then treat.
• Lesson 2 – If your brothers and sisters come to you with a complaint, try and find out why they have the complaint. Don’t just prescribe a pill.
Some of my doctor kids have it backwards, they treat the symptoms without a diagnosis and that’s the wooly mammoth in the room. If you’re one of those doctors, I know you mean well and I’m proud of you for going to school to become a doctor. I know its cost you 8 to 12 years out of your life, but come on sweetheart; do you really think a hand full of pills is really the answer?
Many of my friends are getting up there in years and when I look at the number of pills they’re taking, it makes me want to send a doctor to his or her room for a very long time out. You know who you are. You’re the doctor that gives a pill for high blood pressure, a pill for high cholesterol, a pill for arthritis, a pill for stress and on it goes. Kiddo, there’s a problem with that approach. All those pills are alien to their bodies and interacting in unknown ways. So, get off the pill kick.
I know you’re trained in school that the best way to treat an ailment is with the best medicine in your black bag. It’s time for you to listen to Mama Vic and think beyond your arsenal of meds and the demands of your patients who want a quick fix for their complaints.
You’re the doctor; listen patiently to your brothers and sisters when they come to you with their complaints. Ask yourself whether a lifestyle change might be the best medicine. Maybe a change in diet, more exercise, stress control or a combination of all three might be the cure for their woes. If so, prescribe on that basis.
My kids working over there in the pharmaceutical labs that invented the pills think they’re helping to solve a host of problems with their pills. And make no mistake; they’ve done a really good job. Many of their medicines are wonderful. However, they’ve also created the potential for a chemical nightmare.
You need to keep in mind that the researchers working to create great medicines are paid by the pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies are corporations and corporations have only one interest: Profit. For pharmaceutical companies to profit, they need to market their products. You, the doctor, are a premium target market. If they can convince you to prescribe their medications, they’ve been successful.
Over the past several years, these companies are even going around you directly to your patients with the marketing message, “Get your doctor to prescribe this and your arthritis pain will go away (or you’ll sleep better or, or, or).”
I want to mention one more thing. Many of your patients want quick fixes in the form of a magic pill. You’ve got to stand your ground. If that patient goes somewhere else for treatment, tough. Let them go. Your job is to make them well and keep them that way not to pander to their screwed up thinking.
