Is Medicine the Answer to our Ills?

Sometimes medicine will help and many times it will hurt the patient. Until the recent research and development uncovered some new medicines most of us went through life depending on hard work, prayer and social support to get through tough times. Dr. Robert Schuyler has the motto: "The going gets tough, the tough get going".

That is a good motto but it doesn't always work. I grew up hearing another motto: "He needs to pull himself up by his bootstraps". It is also partially true r half truth, "Jesus is the answer to all problems".

Recently, we have a half truth on the other end of the spectrum. Medicine is the answer to all mental, emotional, behavioral and relational problems.Over 20% of the kids in many elementary schools have an official mental/emotional/behavioral diagnosis. Why so many more now than before?

1. They were previously undiagnosed
2. Things are getting worse
3. Better diagnosis
4. More doctors and psychologists
5. Incorrect diagnoses

I am enclosing an article I think will be helpful to you about this situation. As the founder of an in patient psychiatric hospital and outpatient clinics, I obviously believe that medicine can be helpful. However, I also know that over medicating people, especially kids, can be harmful to them and their futures.

Read this blog by Dr. Leap, a Medical Doctor who sees the results of the Medical Model or Disease Model of treatment. Write and tell me what you think. Do we always need a pill or will prayer and love be more effective?

Gary Sweeten

The Medical System is Broken

Is it? When we travel to other countries it doesn't look bad at all. In fact, most wealthy and famous people almost always choose to come to the USA for medical care from their home nations. Ken Blackwell writes about this in his recent post on the Huffington Post.

Blackwell points out that "World famous tenor Plácido Domingo has undergone surgery for the removal of a cancerous polyp. The surgery took place at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. The hospital's spokeswoman announced that the cancerous growth was small and the opera star is expected to make a full recovery."

Despite the fact that Mr.Domingo is a millionaire man from Spain he came to America for medical care. Why did he not stay in Spain or go to the countries with the supposedly vaunted Socialist medical care such as Norway, Denmark, England? Why not Canada? Well, even the Canadians who head their health care system come to America for treatment.

American health care can be improved. It can be made less expensive. The insurance issues can be made more efficient and human. But those are things that need to be accomplished in small steps not by a take over by the Federal Government.

We are just finishing up a year long study of families with severely disabled children. One of their greatest complaints was the bureaucracy and lack of compassion they found. That kind of thing can be and needs to be changed. However, adding Federal oversight by the IRS will not reduce the coldness and inhumane treatment. Has anyone ever told you that the IRS is a model of care and compassion?

Medical care in the USA is superior at the technical level to that of any nation on earth, and it can be made better. Let's all work to improve it but not by giving more power to the Feds.