What do they really know?
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After diagnosing a severe ear infection, one doctor told my sister that her ear was so damaged she would probably never use it again. Another doctor told a friend that, after cancer treatment, she would probably not be able to conceive. Weeks later, my sister’s hearing (in the previously infected ear) is so good, it’s almost bionic. My friend, who bravely told herself that the man who gave such a dim prognosis was “only a doctor”, is now four months pregnant. What can I say? Doctors are just as human as you and I. We should stop giving them so much power.
I am not a doctor hater. I’ve just had too many disappointing experiences with them. Like everyone else, I used consider them infallible, consulted them for every little symptom and hung onto their every word. It wasn’t until that horrible birthing experience (for which my son and I had to pay with our health) that I decided to take all that power back into my hands. From then on, I decided that doctors were not God (even if some of them think they are) and that I was going to be responsible for my own health and well-being.
That began my journey. I read and read and read. I asked a lot of questions. I began to eat better, exercise wisely, think with more than my mind, listen with more than my ears and tune into that wonderful human gift called instinct. I haven’t taken antibiotics, steroids or any allopathic medicine in years. I’ve talked to, consulted with, and learned from true healers. I’ve even taken to importing the best quality homeopathic remedies and body care products available, so that people who truly care about themselves can really care for themselves.
Doctors have an important role to play. When it comes to diagnosis, life and death and emergency situations, I think doctors are invaluable. But not enough doctors today are healers. They see the human body as a one-dimensional image, isolating one symptom and basing (sometimes really toxic) treatment on fragments, not the whole picture. From my experience, very few doctors see their patients as individual human beings with unique physical, physiological, emotional, intellectual and spiritual constitutions. They give more power to man-made chemicals and machines than to the human being’s amazing capacity to heal itself. They can make symptoms disappear for awhile, but few of them can really heal.
Caroline Myss, medical intuitive and author, wisely says that your biography becomes your biology. That, to me, is such a fundamental truth. What you think and feel, your attitude and the way you have processed or repressed experiences in your life, all have an impact on your health. That’s the most important factor. The others have to do with external things like diet. Too many of us just eat, without really thinking about what’s in our food. How many of us know—or even care to know– that the chicken, meat and dairy products today are polluted with hormones and antibiotics? Have we stopped to think how these hormones and antibiotics affect us? How many of us stop to think about what processed, canned and microwaved food do to our cells over time?
A month ago, I bought some fruit to use as a centerpiece for my dining table. I threw them out only yesterday. They looked almost perfect. I refused to have anyone in the house eat them. God only knows what kind of chemicals were sprayed on them to make them last so long. I’m not going to risk ingesting whatever it was they used to fight the natural decaying process of nature.
Then there’s the environment. I have just been told that halogen lights are a source of radiation. Computers are the same. Think about the other things we are exposed to on a daily basis that we never even think about. How much fluoride and detergents are in your brand of toothpaste? How much do you think you really need and how do you think this affects you over time? Do you know that the composition of detergents today mimic female hormones? Over time, these make an impact on our health. All these things I learned on my own and from healers who practice alternative health. Not one doctor (of Western medicine) ever spoke to me about these things.
What I want from my doctor is a kind of practical, wholistic knowledge about true, human health. I don’t want an expert on illness who works by eliminating symptoms and who won’t listen to me when I tell him that a certain natural remedy seems to be helping me. I want someone who knows about human health and doesn’t negate other streams of healing; someone who sees the whole picture and helps me incorporate this kind of wholeness into my life.
A year or so ago, a doctor told my father-in-law that his time on earth was pretty much up. Who does he think he is, I asked myself. Only God knows that. Unfortunately, if you are that type of patient who believes that doctors are all-powerful, words like that can just seep into your cells and wreak havoc on your health. No one has the right to do that.
This is the age of consciousness. There is so much information available. Doctors have an important role to play in our health, but our role is even greater. Our doctors need to accept that as patients, we have the right to informed choices and should be given support to exercise them. It’s time to realize that when it comes to your health, only you hold the key.
The Waldorf Mom 
You are right. We expect, unfairly, too much from doctors. We expect them to “save lives”. This is something they cannot do. They perform tasks that prolong life perhaps but cannot save them because at the end, they cannot stop death.
On the other hand, doctors could do more with building living relationships with their parents; have an almost spiritual relationship with the patients. Get to know them. Then healing can begin. But how many doctors can really take the time.
When my dad died, there were questions about his doctor. My comment to my family at the time was very simple: my dad liked that doctor and they were friends. What more could one ask. One day, with the help of conscious doctors, we will all be able to heal ourselves.
I could have written this article (but most probably not as well). =)
I feel there are a lot of medical doctors that have become mere agents of medical institutions and the powers behind them. This limits their capacity to truly heal the patient.
i totally agree with the article and the comments as well “your biography is your biology” thats beautiful! i agree with the comment on how doctors have become mere agents of big business….in the end it should always be about YOU, how you take care of yourself and your family, everything else out there is just greed……
Very true. almost all the doctors today deals only with symptoms, not about the real cause. They have med for every symptom you tell them, and they really stick to “by the book” kind of healing. They totally shut themselves out from alternative healings which are sometimes more effective, simple and cheaper.
i don’t think the doctor’s role is to save lives but to enhance the quality of life.
all this is so true! and what saddens me even more is that doctors would do the same even on children!
when we brought our son to the ER months ago (due to his asthma attack) he was nebulized with different kinds of nebule meds (ventolin, budesonide, and combivent) so many times! like almost every 20 minutes! i asked the doctor why have him nebulized so often in such short intervals and she said, “to challenge him.” what did that mean? well, she said it’s to see how quick he will respond to the meds and to what meds in particular. my gosh! it seemed like they were experimenting on our son! i could have argued with them about it (i almost did), but all i wanted at that moment was for our son to feel better and breath normally again. i really felt so helpless then, having no choice, and leaving it all up to the doctor to do her job.
that’s why we all have to do our part, too, on prevention so we and our families don’t always end up in the hands of these doctors, especially those who don’t even give a d*mn!
You are so right! I would go to a doctor for diagnosis and for emergency life and death situations. But i will choose to heal and strengthen my body the natural way. Drug and chemical-free! Don’t you notice the med reps lined up in the hallways of doctors’ offices waiting to give free drug samples for the doctors to dispense to their poor, vulnerable, helpless and uninformed patients? How can they these docs believe whatever these med reps tell them? And later on let their patients try them for testing? That makes them puppets of the drug industry. Drugs stop symptoms temporarily and leave awful side effects but never really heal the body. It’s easy to succumb to a drug’s promise because we want to get rid of the inconvenient symptoms and docs want us to stop complaining, at least temporarily.