Many people on social media rail against the medical establishment for its lack of involvement in preventative health initiatives. Knowing many doctors in several specialities, I do not doubt that all of these very intelligent professionals understand the importance of such prevention approaches, but that their hands are tied by circumstance of medical practice. Preventative medicine is not widely practiced by doctors because of financial imperative, but not some great financial conspiracy plot to keep everyone sick. Nor is it out of lack of desire by the practitioners to see us fit and healthy. It is because of the financial circumstance that is medical practice – whether specialist or general practice.
In general medical practice, in order to maintain a clinic environment to the expectations of the medical establishment (administrative record keeping, equipment availability and sterilization, rent, other incident costs), a medical doctor must have visits lasting on average 7 minutes – no longer. The method of remuneration from government medical insurance makes this an obligation, not a choice – otherwise the costs of the clinic rapidly exceed the remuneration. Add to this the obligation to reimburse 10-15 years of costly tuition paid (usually) by loans — you try to get a GPA good enough for med school while working 2 jobs — and you get shorter and shorter medical visits. In order to fulfill this need, medical education teaches practitioners to use executive triage and decision process to target the most effective intervention GIVEN THE TIME AVAILABLE!
“You try to get a GPA good enough for med school while working 2 jobs”
In specialist medical practice,the demands are driven from the patient side – huge numbers of very specific interventions are required by simple volume. By the time most patients make it to a specialist, preventative approaches are no longer the best choice and specialist interventions are the default.
Preventative approaches are based on lifestyle interventions and these require teaching and mentorship
Preventative approaches are based on lifestyle interventions and these require teaching and mentorship — both techniques extremely time intensive and out of the reach of our medical establishment due to its extremely high intrinsic overhead. It’s up to individuals to seek out their own mentors in order to create change in their lives and those mentors must come from the community – be they therapists, osteopaths or personal trainers….
