San Francisco., Whether it was Mahatma Charak of Ayurved or the Greek doctor Hypocrite, a doctor had great bindings of trust and integrity with his patient. That trust was the biggest part of healing.
Now when I am in hospital, every 4 hours I must go through body temperature, BP, oxygen intake and calories consumed. Different Specialists have different roles to play. Mouth pathology doctor guided on how I must swallow and how and what I must chew and drink. Any other way, we would invite danger of pneumonia when liquid or food goes into air pipe. Then they have to resort to nasal feeding tube to keep me going.
Gastroenterology is concerned with endoscopic health and colon functioning. Cardiologist is prescribing new medicines to keep blood flow smooth. Neurologist is concerned about my sleep health and refers me to sleep specialist. With 25 electrodes connected to me, sleep speciality doctor gives me an eight hour long sleep test.
Sleep doctor recommends new advanced blood test to check why my leg twitches twenty times in eight hour sleep test. ENT doctor makes sure that ear canals are open & vibrate good health, and sinuses are normal. Allergy specialist tells me to stay away from certain antibiotics. Urologist thinks that urinary tracts are normal.
The entire process of health care treats my body like a product on a conveyor belt. This product need to be fitted with so many nuts and bolts and welding and washed and greased with proper oils.
Super specialty healthcare of today has lost touch of warmth that a personal physician and his patient used to feel. That feeling of warmth and trust is gone from modern medicine.
A great cardiologist of his time, Dr. Bernard Lown of Harvard who is 96 years old now, wrote a book in 1996 “The Lost Art of Healing”, says this “The biomedical Sciences dominate our conception of health are….healing is replaced with treating, caring is supplanted by managing, and the art of listening is taken over by technological procedures”. Doctors now have no control over industrialization of their profession. Patient is a commodity, no more and no less.
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