The medical profession, a very noble one indeed, still has its substantial limitations. While I am not a doctor myself (so don’t take this too seriously), I can mention how doctors often fail.
- They know more about your body than actually knowing your body.
Whatever symptoms you give them, they can only diagnose, treat (and sometimes, cure) a given ailment, as well as give advice, based on what they know. While empathy is a great quality for a doctor to hold, what makes a doctor what s/he is includes his education and training in a given specialty through many grueling schooling and training years (4 years of college, containing a pre-medical sequence, another 4 of medical school, a year of internship, and a residency based on his/her specialty). No wonder physician assistants and nurse practitioners are doing more and more activity formerly reserved - Doctors, especially surgeons, must strongly keep in mind the Hippocratic oath, which binds doctors to “do no harm.” This means, they must know what they are doing, because if they do not perform the right moves, they may cause injury, or even death. While some surgeries are becoming much and much easier (e.g., eye surgeries), others, like heart transplants, are no joke. While all surgeries are intended to help the patient, they sometimes often turn adverse. And like a typical illness or injury, a surgery, despite being a treatment, must be recovered from. So your original issue, surgically addressed, is now a matter of surgical recovery, not the original condition. And surgeries, inevitably, are treated by one’s body, the same as an actual injury (after all, both lead to scars). In a nutshell, surgery can be viewed as a cousin of a true injury, but with a positive intent.
- The medical and legal professions meet on a horrendous frequency, i.e., when one is injured or dies from medical malpractice. In fact, some doctors are lawyers as well! And this is where things get really ugly. (Insurance often ties in, by the way.)
- Gone are the days of the low-key, innocent prescription choices by doctors. Nowadays, it’s flamboyantly spread throughout TV commercials and magazines. After all, isn’t a prescription, let alone a combination of such, a doctor’s decision? Now consumers are equally privy to medications that a doctor could prescribe. Even worse, “families” of drugs are noticeable, some of which have gone over-the-counter, others protected from such. For example, for acid reflex, there’s Prilosec, Zantac, Prevacid, etc. Diabetics have many options for their treatment, especially insulin. A medication family called statins are intended to treat high cholesterol; among such drugs are Zocor, Lipitor, Crestor, etc. And men (especially over, say, 40) have the wish of a better sex life with Viagra (over 2 decades old now!), Levitra, and Cialis.
Alas, doctors are here to stay, whether you like it or not. And God made certain minds that study different things. Medicine is only one of them. And when a person needs a doctor or hospital stay, pray for them! After all, Luke, the writer of his gospel and Acts, was one.
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