In Featured, From the Editorial Board
October 26, 2022
Jordan Alexander
After dragging my feet for more than half a decade, I begrudgingly made a clinic appointment for a physical this year. Checking in and talking with a nurse, I then waited alone in the doctor’s examination room, daring to pull down my mandated mask.
But then the doctor entered—wearing a pin listing her pronouns—and she asked me to pull that mask right back up. However, she later asked me to remove it to check my throat and mouth, leaving me to wonder if she could see the ridiculousness of the situation.
My experience in that examination room didn’t do much to boost the already slim trust I have in the medical system. That trust has been eroded over the past several years, and these days, a broken bone, cancer, or something immediately life-threatening are the only ailments I would turn to a hospital with for treatment. For any non-emergency medical problem, I fully expect to receive a misdiagnosis—if any diagnosis—and a bottle of pills on the way out of the doctor’s office.
I’m not alone in my cynical perceptions. In 2022, only 38 percent of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the medical system, according to a Gallup poll. Another 38 percent of Americans had “some” confidence in the medical system, and nearly one quarter of the population had “very little” confidence in the medical system.
Why is it that 62 percent of Americans have only some or little confidence in the medical system? One possible reason is misdiagnosis.
Around 12 million patients are misdiagnosed in the U.S. every year, based on a 2014 estimate. And even if a misdiagnosis is not deadly, it wastes both the patient’s and hospital’s time and resources.
Another potential reason is that the first solution to every medical ailment is to prescribe some variety of drug. Forty-two percent of 65-year-olds and older in America are on at least five medications, according to a 2019 report.
But older Americans aren’t the only ones on more drugs than they need. Do you remember the days when kids were told to run around outside to burn off energy? Truly, it’s not reasonable to think that children can sit still behind a desk for hours each day.
But rather than address the feminization of education, we diagnose rowdy children with ADHD and drug them into submission.
A similar example can be found with depression. The decades-old chemical imbalance explanation of depression was recently debunked, yet 1 in every 10 Americans continue taking antidepressants based on this misunderstanding of where depression comes from.
My clinic visit signals another reason why Americans may mistrust the medical system: politics. The pronoun pin on my doctor’s lanyard announced her political ideology. “Look at me!” it essentially said. “I think the right think.” I don’t need politics in my doctor’s office. Conveniently, many of the women who screamed they didn’t want the government in their wombs are fine with their politics in the doctor’s office.
More than that, the pin signaled that this doctor thought that gender was some sort of social construct and that there’s not a strong psychological element to your sex. Basic biology—and casual observations about reality—show that the differences between men and women are more than their reproductive organs. And if my doctor doesn’t ascribe to basic biology, can I really trust her medical opinion?
These are just a few examples, but the crowning jewel of the medical system’s failure is the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, Anthony Fauci declared, “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” Science used to refer to the scientific method—a process for studying the world around us—rather than one man or the set of ideas approved by the elite.
Additionally, with big pharma representing 75 percent of television advertising spending in 2020, the mainstream media gave glowing coverage pushing specific drug treatments for COVID (the COVID vaccines). Add in the fact that these treatments were—and are—mandated, despite their experimental status, and it’s no wonder why many are hesitant to trust the medical system.
All of this is very doom and gloom, but there is a silver lining: You as a patient have never had more access to medical information to make informed decisions. We live in a golden age of information when many medical sources and journals are publicly accessible.
Many of the sources that doctors are reading are available for you to critically assess.
We can demand better from our doctors. While I don’t doubt there are fantastic doctors out there, they seem to be increasingly few and far between.
It’s up to us to be informed participants in our healthcare decisions, ready and willing to advocate for ourselves.
And at the end of the day, the best things we all can do are also the simplest: Eat healthy, exercise, and get some fresh air.
Source : Intellectual Take Out —www.intellectualtakeout.org
peckford42 
My experience in my 71 years has been that if you have an accident, the emergency room doctors are very skilled at sewing you back together, in my case saving a hand one time and saving my foot another. Other than this kind of medical treatment I have found it is best to doctor yourself. My health is the most important thing to me so I spend 90% of my leisurely reading on staying healthy and treating disease when it happens. It is working for me. It seems to me that all doctors are taught nowadays is how to pick the prescription drug that will cover up your symptoms the best.
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Thank you! Eat healthy, exercise and get some fresh air! What a novel concept. When it comes to medical care I believe in research first.
When certain symptoms began to emerge for me, I turned to my computer. Once upon a time I would head to the library but now we have the internet (at least for now). I ask my computer questions like “what causes burning pains in my leg muscles?”, things like that. And my computer gives me a variety of choices. After checking all possibilities on line, I arrange a visit with my medical doctor who examines me and suggests that maybe I am vitamin deficient so I should start taking multi vitamins. “Ok fella,” I think to myself, “you’re the expert”. So, off I go to the nearest big box pharmacy where the clerk points me to an array of multi vitamins. I purchase one extra-large bottle and return home to start consuming this “miracle cure”.
I follow the instructions on the miracle cure bottle. Once the bottle is empty I return to the medical doctor whereupon I inform him that the symptoms are now more severe. “Hmmm!” says he. “Perhaps you should continue with the multi vitamins.” I look at him with exasperation and I say “Do you suppose I could have fibromyalgia”.
“Stand up and turn around” says he, and I do. He examines 18 pressure points on my back, 15 of which are extremely tender.
“You have fibromyalgia” says he and with that he writes me a prescription. I look at the paper and read what is written. I say “What is this?” “Will it cure me?” He replies “No. It is an antidepressant which is used to alleviate the symptoms of fibromyalgia. There is no cure.” to which I reply “But I’m not depressed, I’m in pain”!
I ask if I can obtain a handicap sticker for my vehicle and in response he completes a form, signs it and returns it to me with instructions to deliver it to the nearest motor vehicle branch to obtain the handicap sticker.
I leave his office with the form and the prescription.
I read the information he put on my application for handicap sticker. No mention is made of fibromyalgia. Rather, he has indicated “severe arthritis”!
At home I turn to my trusty computer and research the medication just prescribed for me. Reading about the potential side effects scared the bejesus out of me. I tossed the prescription into file 13 and the next day I visited the motor vehicle branch for my handicap sticker for my non-existent severe arthritis.
That, my friends, describes just one of my many experiences with medical care in Canada.
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Why Would I Trust the Medical System—It’s Very Sick!!!!
My God, will the opportunities to observe the slide of Western Civilization, into the abyss of absurdity and Wokeism, never cease to provide grist for the mill of, “you’ve got to be kidding me”.
The title of the article, by Jordan Alexander, elicited my first observation that suggest revision was warranted. I would suggest it should read, “Why Would I Trust the Medical System—It’s Very Sick”!!!!
A System that, in my lifetime, has been unable and/or unwilling to fix its supply challenges regarding in demand service providers (I.e. doctors, nurses, Lab. techs, etc.) is not deserving of trust nor respect.
Any entity, group, profession, association or cabal of misfits who are unable to effectively and efficiently, over a fifty (50) years plus period, supply the marketplace with properly skilled, qualified personnel are either inept and incompetent or manipulative and malicious in their suppressing training and thus controlling supply.
Yes, yes, I get that many of these self-serving medical training institutions are, in the main, taxpayer funded—thus presumably unable to chart their own course—, however, no one can convince me, nor anyone else who thinks rationally, that the reality of a shortage of “medical personnel” in 1971, 51 years later in 2022, is justified in facing the same shortage challenges, is indicative of a Medical System that knows how to solve problems.
So, you, Sir, as a patient is not seen as a customer, rather, you are seen more as a collection of random cellular composition that can be directed in a manner, by general practitioner doctors in particular, to become a lifelong customer of Big Pharma. Yes, the vast majority of doctors, especially GPS) in most western countries are pill pushers. They are no longer in the business of optimizing your heath, their priorities (not all doctors to be fair), are as follows:
1. Book as many patients as you can per day— thus maximizing revenue;
2. Spend as little time with each patient as possible—— thus maximizing revenue;
3. Limited the number of issues you will discuss with patients— thus maximizing revenue;
4. Write as many prescriptions as possible—thus giving patients more potential addiction, dependency and side effects issues. Result, more return patients and a boon for Big Pharma—— thus maximizing revenue;
5. Ensure your physician association jealousy guards the “doctor” jurisdiction, expand whenever opportune, thus protecting what “must” fall within your work-scope. Never let nurses and pharmacists have increased latitude in what they can do, prescribe, direct, etc.—result, maximizing revenue;
6. Bill the healthcare system as often as you possibly can, never be afraid to over-bill—thus maximizing revenue;
7. Take affront to any patient who questions your judgement. That’s not allowed in this egomaniacal expert cabal of deserters of the Hippocratic Oath;
8. Cave into government pressure and fold like a dirty shirt whenever your career, job, research grants needs to be put ahead of patients’ health (I.e Covid-19 mandates);
9. Ignore the legal principle of informed consent (I.e. Covid-19 mRNA Experimental Materials injections);
10. Refuse to educate oneself about the research and opinions that are counter to the Covid-19 mRNA Experimental Materials injections mantra;
11. Deny or obfuscate the numbers of people (hundreds of thousands per year) who are injured and/or die annually from medical errors;
12. Participate in and help erect the “white wall” that doctors utilize to protect their colleagues’ errors and incompetence;
13. Bringing your politics into the workplace with pronoun demands, abortion, birth control, parental rights, sex reassignment, body mutilation, gender dysphoria, physician assisted suicide, LBGTQ2IA matters and beliefs, and conflicts of interests—to name just a few.
Note: Doctors show little, if any, concern for the hundreds of millions of hours patients waste waiting for doctors. This patient infinite and valuable commodity, that is time, of every patient is treated by most doctors as “too bad and so sad attitude”. The tens of billions of dollars of wasted time each year is not even a remote consideration by the profession—they don’t seem to care thus indicative and affirmative of their monopolistic positions.
The medical profession, in to many cases, especially doctors, are losing the public’s trust. The cowardice and lack of morality the profession showed in the Covid-19 manufactured crisis is appalling, despicable and an affront to any doctor who insisted on living up to his/her Hippocratic Oath.
Too many doctors are no longer qualified nor deserving to be called members of the science community. They wear the armour of the white coat thus attempting to convey the aura of cleanliness, professionalism, status and to engender patient confidence in the service. Sadly, too many patients now see another colour (yellow) on this white coat and it isn’t flattering, to be certain.
Yes, one can be certain that trust in the profession is at an all time low, a misdiagnosis highly probable, and an avoidance of the profession’s services most likely the most beneficial to one’s health. This is so sad, as doctors were held in such high regard and greatly respected(mostly earned), until the last several decades.
When 62% or more have “only some or little confidence” in the medical system, the tip of the spear are the doctors—sorry but that’s the reality.
So, in conclusion, the doctors are suffering, whether rightly or wrongly, from a public perception that:
1. Doctors are more interested in billing than patient health outcomes. They don’t have time for proper consults;
2. Doctors are pill pushers;
3. Doctors are intentionally creating a shortage of doctors;
4. Doctors are undertaking tasks best left to others;
5. Doctors don’t respect their patient’s time;
6. Doctors push over medication;
7. Doctors coverup for each other’s mistakes;
8. Doctors are becoming too political and are bring such to the office at an increasing rate;
9. Doctors detest patients who question a doctor’s approach, recommendation, etc.;
Finally, any doctor arrogant enough to conclude that a questioning of their expertise is an attack on science is in the wrong profession.
Also, it is most disconcerting to find that too many doctors, when questioned regarding Covid-19 treatments, vaccines, etc., are often oblivious, actually not interested, in any published materials that differs from the “acceptable” mandated propaganda narrative.
Yes, I agree, we can and should demand better from our doctors. And, yes, I don’t doubt there are fantastic doctors out there, sadly, they seem to be increasingly few and far between.
So my friends, I leave you with this contemplation thought. “Ask not why you feel abandoned by the medical system but why so many doctors have abandoned their Hippocratic Oath. If their is one thing Covid-19 has taught us, it is that cowardice is alive and well, the medical system being no exception”.
Food for thought.
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At 75 years old I’ve outlived the two best doctors I ever had. Both have retired. The family doctor found I had a heart issue in his office with an
ECG test and sent me to the nearby hospital immedaitely for a chest x-ray and got me an appointment to see an excellent cardiologist 4 days later who I saw for 20 years before he got dementia and retired. When I told him I was going to Peru and the mountains he gave me the name of a cardiologist in Lima Peru if I needed help and he sent all my records down to that doctor just in case. What doctor does that today?
Now my younger family doctor mostly does telephone consults and orders pills, X-ray etc…… Family doctor before him had a nurse that took my temp, weight and checked my pill list before I saw the doctor. Same program with the cardiologist. Now only the cardiologist does an ECG in his office before I see him.
HUGE difference in care from years ago to today. And try and find a family doctor taking new patients. Good luck on that quest.
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Brian,
When the primary motivation of the doctor, male/female or any other identifier, is the advancement of their economic largesse versus the patient’s health—Houston we have a problem.
Jeez, I was lucky enough to find a GP doctor several years ago, after my longtime, no BS “UK” trained GP doctor retired, to find a Nigerian —UK trained— raised doctor who still appears to place his patient interest high on the totem pole of health.
That being said, my fear is that he becomes what I call Canadianized/Americanized and the $$$$$ signs becomes the prime motivator—so far so good and not the case.
He still displays characteristics of the doctors I knew in my younger years and that is so refreshing. Yes, he makes phone calls to check up on my health and shows genuine concern.
That being said, anytime I needed the attention of a specialist in the past, once I was in the system, they were often top notch. Why the difference is often a contemplation thought of mine.
Not to worry, we are facing a myriad of challenges in our western civilization and methinks the medical system, like many others, just reflects the lack of foundational elements (beliefs, values, ethics, morals, principles) that too many of us failed to instil in our children.
Predictably and sadly, we are now reaping the societal seeds we sowed decades ago—yep, that damn mirror is always telling the truth!!
Food for thought.
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As a Canadian, I recognize how very fortunate I am to be seeing only my second doctor since 19 yrs old (my first retired early) and my ‘new’ doctor is now approaching 70 . Again, as a Canadian I knew the challenges I was facing finding a doctor taking new patients in 2010 ! Other countries buy into the narrative that we have one of the best medical systems in the world (ha!). My current doc is planning on retirement within a year. Absolutely not looking forward to sourcing a family doctor in Canada (if any of them take new patients because they already weren’t in 2010)
Bring on my approved Visa (16 months away/ I’m not a turncoat….simply disgusted with the sh*t hole this country has become ) ☹️…..I’d gladly have the option to pay for health services than be denied them ….full stop
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I completely agree with you. If they can’t provide the service then allow private clinics and hospitals to provide service to those who can afford it. This would free up space in the public sector. Also, our system doesn’t promote preventive medicine. , which private clinics do.
I just returned from a trip to Turkey and there were 2 private hospitals within a 5 minute walk from where I was staying. A friend told me they offer a complete preventative check up for the equivalent of $200 CDN. I made an appointment for the following day and was greeted by an English speaking nurse who led me around the hospital for 6 hours getting one test after another including every possible blood test, chest x-ray , heart treadmill test and more. Even got a dental check up and eye examination. My memory is getting bad so I asked if I could get an MRI and see a neurologist and that was an extra $100. It was a big relief to know there was no sign of Alzheimer’s.
Competition in the free world is a great thing. Unfortunately we are not living in a free country.
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US Hospitals On Track For Worst Financial Year In Decades
Healthcare systems in the U.S. have had a challenging year, and they are on track for their worst financial year in decades.
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Wakey, Wakey people.
https://www.stewpeters.com/video/2022/10/died-suddenly-official-trailer-streaming-november-21st/#menu
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