American Medicine

Recently I was talking with an old friend and as happens so often with old friends, our conversation turned to health problems.  He was having a chronic problem that even the Mayo Clinic couldn't solve and he finally said, "Next time I'm just going to wait for something to break."  He meant that American medicine was best at fixing something that was broken and not very good at chronic problems or, heaven forbid, preventing problems.

It's sad, but he's right.  I asked if he'd tried any complementary or alternative medicine and he replied that yes, he'd tried acupuncture a few times, but it didn't help.  Now the fact that this medical system from China has been around for oh, say 5,000 years or so, didn't impress him enough to go more than a couple of times says a lot about American patients.  People want immediate results, whether it's a pill or surgery, but FAST results to their problems.  They don't care that the health problem may have been years in the making.

American medicine has done an amazing job of training patients.  They've trained them to put up with poor results and keep coming back.  They've trained them to put up with rising costs that damage all but the richest in our country.  Worst of all, they've trained them not to try or trust other types of medicine that are successful all around the world.

Is it any wonder that healthcare in the U.S. ranks the lowest in the industrialized world?