On Bashing Western medicine
Posted November 11th, 2007 by annmongeau
I bloged a while back (Western Medicine and Acupuncture) thinking I was addressing the tendency for natural medicine types to bash Western medicine. I gave my work history to show that I’d been around various blocks numerous times. I wasn’t looking for compliments and I wasn’t primarily talking about referrals. Let me be clearer.
When we decide where to go for goods and services, two things come to mind right away. “Does it work? Is this useful to me?” and, “What does it cost?” Then come questions like, “Is it close to me?” “Is it open hours that are useful to me?”
To be useful, medicine needs to alleviate suffering. People all try to alleviate their own suffering before seeking help. Some of us ignore the problem or minimize it until it becomes intolerable. We ask friends, we take someone else’s medication if the problem seems similar. We try things from the drug store. We try traditional remedies or family recommended remedies. We might drink alcohol or take street drugs to medicate our problems. If we aren’t able to alleviate our suffering we go for help.
There are many forms of help for those who are suffering. I think of the story of the blind men and the elephant when I think of all the forms of allopathic, alternative, folk, traditional and esoteric medicine. No one of them seems to have the entire picture and all have their points of view. All, also, have plenty of testimonials to their effectiveness or they wouldn’t be out there. Those that practice the various forms of healing to alleviate suffering are usually trying to make a living doing it. If it doesn’t work, they don’t stay in business. After all, most of us ask our friends, co-workers, neighbors and family for recommendations and the first question is always some form of “Does it work?”
It’s become fashionable in natural medicine circles to bash Western medicine/allopathy. A lot of black and white thinking goes on. “All MDs are jerks.” “Medications all have side effects so they are bad for you.” “If it’s natural, it is good for you.” This type of thinking isn’t winning us any friends or respect, nor is it factual.
One thing is for sure. None of the types of medicine have all the answers. And since we get back what we put out, I think it’s wiser to be more discriminating in our comments about other types of medicine.
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
The reality is that there are inherent risks to living in this world. There are risks with driving a car, yet many of us do drive a car because we feel it benefits us somehow, because it's necessary or at least is the best alternative. It's the same with western medicine.
I strongly encourage my patients to educate themselves and know what their options are so they can make fully informed decisions. I've had several patients who had some alarming signs and symptoms, but were reluctant to take my advice to consult with an M.D. because of the things Don listed above. I tell them that receiving a diagnosis from an M.D. doesn't mean they're required to follow that M.D.'s advice. It's the patient's choice. Obtaining information about how one's body is functioning impacts that choice.
Being human, it can at times be easy to try and make decisions for others when it would really be best if they made the decisions for themselves. If we discourage our patients from seeing an M.D., are we not in danger of choosing for them? Of course, this depends on the delivery of the information. I lean toward educating, encouraging and enlightening my patients in a way that avoids promoting fear yet empowers them to make decisions that are best for *them* (even if I disagree).
Cheryl
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
i think it is about being informed, pragmatic and respectful. bashing is different from that.
i am very weary of western medicine but i am also treating plenty of people who would most likely be dead without their (HIV) meds and i am pretty happy that they are alive.
my father (who had bipolar disorder and died when he was in his late 40's) might have still been alive today if he had access to the proper psych meds, but he didn't because we lived in the soviet union. this part of my family history serves as a good reminder that things are not black and white.
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
According to Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, allopathic medical treatments performed in hospitals by licensed personnel cause at least 225,000 deaths annually, and another 199,000 people die annually from adverse effects of conventional outpatient treatments. The hospital deaths resulted from due to nonerror adverse drug effects, medication errors, other errors, unnecessary surgeries, and hospital-acquired infections.
In the past 20 years about 3000 people have died in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil--an average of 150 per year. Starfield’s figures indicate that on an annual average basis “properly prescribed” allopathic medicine kills 2800 times more people than terrorism.
Starfield reported these figures in JAMA (Starfield B. Is US Health Really the Best in the World? JAMA, July 26, 2000;284(4);483-85), yet they did not end up reported in many newspapers. Would you call her article, or reporting on her article, "bashing Western medicine"?
It seems likely to me that if any other consumer product or service killed or harmed this number of people on an annual basis it would be taken off the market.
Yet as an institution (individual practitioners vary in their views), conventional medicine goes on claiming itself the pinnacle of medical expertise and attacking all alternatives as hazards to health. I subscribe to MedScape, an e-newsletter for allopaths and they regularly have very negative articles attacking alternative medicines as unproven and unsafe.
Of course, not all "natural" medicines are "safe" either, but if you compare the safety record of drugs with that of acupuncture, herbs or nutritional supplements, the "natural" sure looks a lot safer. The FDA itself could find only 100 deaths even linked to ephedra; meanwhile, according to James Fries, M.D., of the Stanford University School of Medicine, about 76,000 Americans are hospitalized and 7,600 die each year from gastrointestinal bleeding caused by aspirin and other NSAIDs. But ephedra gets banned and aspirin still flows over the counter without even a warning label regarding this risk. Never mind Vioxx and Celebrex, or statin drugs causing memory loss and rhabdomyolysis....and liver damage... and the list goes on...
Anyway, if you know that a product or service has a high risk, but others do not, do you have an ethical duty to inform others of this hazard? Or do you keep your mouth shut for fear of offending the purveyors of that product or service? Or because you want to be nice and don't want to look like you're "putting others down"? Where do your ethical obligations lie....I'm asking you to think about it.
And if you have a safer, effective, and more economical alternative, why shouldn't you use this contrast to market your product or service? So long as you respect facts, I don't get the reasoning behind that. Are you saying that if Toyota has a safer car than others on the market, they should not tell anyone because that would "demonize" the competition?
If company X produces products that kill people, and someone points that out, how does that amount to "demonizing" company X? Didn't company X commit the crime of unleashing and endorsing the product that killed so many people? Shouldn't a serial killer be "demonized"? I mean, if you keep killing people, what's more natural than for responsible people who know your MO to point this out? "Even though Joe has killed 2 dozen people on rampages, don't say anything that might make others afraid of him...and certainly don't give anyone the impression that you are less homicidal" Why not?
To use another example closer to home, I have a earned a certification in clinical resistance exercise from a prestigious organization. Many "personal trainers" have their charges perform strength training exercises on unstable Swiss balls. Doing so can easily lead to a ripped tendon or muscle or other injury. Our organization has been very outspoken in denouncing these practices and describing the dangers while demonstrating safer practices, some more or less unique to our approach. We use the safety of our approach in our marketing. We never looked at it as "putting others down." We attacked the practice, not the individuals.
Similarly, rationally pointing out the failures of conventional medicine amounts to a critique of a technique, not "putting others down." Too bad if people are so attached to their techniques that they see a rational attack on the technique as a personal attack. Perhaps they need a course in Advaita Vedanta...to learn how to separate Self from things.
Yes, conventional medicine does do some things well (sewing things back together after trauma, etc.) but some members of that tribe clearly admit that it does a great many things quite poorly and causes a lot of what appears as unnecessary suffering and death (e.g. aspirin above). So what's wrong with pointing out that taking aspirin every day for pain may cause serious injury or death but regular acupuncture for the same pain will not? You want a life without friction? Try another dimension.
Prick, prod, provoke....
don
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
When I first opened my acupuncture practice, I was determined to make professional contacts with the MDs in the neighborhood. I struggled and struggled with why I found it so difficult, just to walk in the door and approach the MDs. Then, finally, I screwed up my courage and stood there in the waiting room with my knees shaking and hands sweating, holding my business cards and pamphlets, and received a surprisingly warm welcome.
Later I was angry with myself--why had this been so hard, why had it taken so much courage? Then my own words came back to me, "Those medical doctors, they don't know anything about how to really help patients heal," etc., etc.
My own thoughts and words had come back to me. What we put out comes back to us, sooner or later.
Marty
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
This is an important topic for conversation. I've certainly been guilty of western medicine bashing in the past, and regret any foolish talk I may have indulged in that regard. Yes, of course western medicine is quite useful.
I can walk again wheras a mere 5 or 10,000 years ago, I would have been road kill after my recent meniscus tear (without the 30 minute out patient surgery that enable med to walk again). Acupuncture could not have helped much there. Nor again when my daughter cracked open her skull a few years ago and needed a few stitches.
As far as pointing out the limitations of Western medicine, I think there is a place for that, but one needs to be extremely mindful of the motivation. Is it done with a spirit of trying to contribute to solving the larger problems of public health and the current failing system (which fails to adequately serve everyone? Or is it merely ego promotion by way of putting down others? We need to check up and investigate on our own mental process.
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
I'd say it's definitely fashionable in some circles. There are some folks, practitioners and patients, for whom natural medicine is like a religion and Western medicine occupies the role of the devil. Anything "natural" is automatically good. I have a few patients like this, not many. I find them hard to deal with, because, like Ann, I lean toward the pragmatic -- I'm open to anything that works to relieve suffering, and I think different things work for different people.
Then there are the practitioners that use Western-med bashing as a form of marketing...I'd call that cynical exploitation of the patients who fit the description above.
Re: On Bashing Western medicine
Has that become fashionable? I know many people are questioning the system with drug companies and insurance, but It hasn't been my experience that acupuncturists bash western medicine. All types of medicine have benefits and limitations, it essential to understand and respect that.