Firestormm
Senior Member
- Messages
- 5,055
- Location
- Cornwall England
You know I can't help but feel that 'modern medicine' has come full circle now. Yesterday we had the following warning from England's Chief Medical Officer. Why the heck she was telling the general public when it's doctors who prescribe the darn things I don't know. Same applied last week I think it was, to the over-prescribing of anti-depressants when appropriate counselling would apparently suffice.
The common-denominator? Well. A couple spring to mind. First, that GPs have swallowed the belief in 'modern medicine'. That 'science' has the answers and a drug will provide a solution in a convenient one-size-fits-all approach.
Second, that GPs believe they no longer have control. That they don't have the time to do what they used to do (assuming that wasn't some sort of 'Golden Age' of healthcare i.e. one that never really existed or wasn't as successful as is often sold), namely to listen to patients, to examine properly, and to prescribe only when absolutely necessary, and not willy-nilly.
But, in relation to the prescribing of drugs, do patients actually demand certain pills? Do they hold their doctors to ransom and refuse to leave until they get a prescription? I found yesterday's pronouncement and the way in which it was broadcast to the nation, quite laughable to be honest. For sure, resistance to antibiotics is building. Some strains of infection are totally resistant - MRSA for example.
But who's responsible for that? Patients? or Doctors? Hmm....
The common-denominator? Well. A couple spring to mind. First, that GPs have swallowed the belief in 'modern medicine'. That 'science' has the answers and a drug will provide a solution in a convenient one-size-fits-all approach.
Second, that GPs believe they no longer have control. That they don't have the time to do what they used to do (assuming that wasn't some sort of 'Golden Age' of healthcare i.e. one that never really existed or wasn't as successful as is often sold), namely to listen to patients, to examine properly, and to prescribe only when absolutely necessary, and not willy-nilly.
But, in relation to the prescribing of drugs, do patients actually demand certain pills? Do they hold their doctors to ransom and refuse to leave until they get a prescription? I found yesterday's pronouncement and the way in which it was broadcast to the nation, quite laughable to be honest. For sure, resistance to antibiotics is building. Some strains of infection are totally resistant - MRSA for example.
But who's responsible for that? Patients? or Doctors? Hmm....