Medicine As Another Belief System - Report Example

Medicine is "just another" belief system Introduction That medicine is just another belief system ‘is a statement that is highly debatable depending on which side you are. If you are on the supporting side, then not only is it a disturbing statement, it is also one that should make to ensure that those on the other side are brought back to the right side of the spectrum. The only way of doing this is by making a detailed analysis of the field of medicine starting with beginning, the achievements, its operation, its success and failures (if any), and how improvements can be made to enable a general enhancement in the field. A belief system can simply be said to be values that define the world in a social, cultural, psychological, or a physical way and tries to come up with a structure that is meant to meet this need in certain ways. There are always values, ideas and practices that are combined to make sure that everything goes on well (Gene, 1999, pg 14). Medicine is just a belief system and whether or not it is a reality that should be believed in, we will soon find out. What started with one man; Hippocrates, has grown to have so much influence on humanity in that many century down the line the set guidelines he developed are still being used and are the threshold for the operation of this field. This set of guidelines usually referred to as the Hippocratic Oath may have changed considerably with time but the concept has remained the same; that is, medicine must be practiced in a way that is beneficial to the patients (Gene, 1999, pg 17). Medicine usually focuses on the form of the human body and how any malfunction on the body can be dealt with successfully. It also looks at the adverse effects of well –intended medical care and how it should be dealt with. This iatrogenic events may include but are not limited to reactions to medication that are very adverse in nature, diagnostic, therapeutic, and prophylactic processes that turn out to be severe. Moreover, it could include infections that are acquired in the hospital (Gene, 1999, pg 17). Furthermore, it could be as a result of accidents that results from falls. Though iatrogenesis is common, it is also very preventable. Health Diseases that affect modern societies have changed dramatically over the past three generations. Diseases that used to cause havoc over the past generations, for example, pneumonia and syphilis nowadays only takes a shot of antibiotics to clear away (Sarah, 2005, pg 30). What used to be mass killers like tuberculosis and polio are today under control and two thirds of the world’s death come as a result of old age (Sarah, 2005, pg 30). Better medical health care can be attributed to change of health status which is often equated to a decline in suffering. There is no hard evidence to suggest that progress of medicine and sickness mutation are directly related because this changes variables that depend on the transformations that take place in the political and technological arena. As these changes take place, the outcome is often reflected on the words and doing of the doctors. This has nothing to do with expensive equipment and good preparation as the health care fraternity believes. Also, most of the burdens of diseases are iatrogenic, that is, they are doctor made. There is well documented facts which are very repressed that indeed a major part of the contemporary clinical care has been instrumental in the elimination of disease but it has also has caused vast amount of damage to the health of many individuals (Hannah & Susan , 2008, pg 25). This has been as a result of century of pursuing a utopia that is totally contrary to any conventional wisdom. An illusion of Doctors effectiveness That doctors have affected epidemics over last one century is a fact that is revealed by studying the patterns of how evolution of disease has been over the last century. A case study is how little of the so called clinical innervations has done to change the situation and this must be the basis upon which a future transformative discussion of health care must be based on (Ivan, 1975 ,pg 17). For example, at outset of industrialization, tuberculosis reached its peak, and this took two generations. By the time the first bacillus was introduced in the scene, the death rate had already declined sufficiently and when antibiotics were becoming a routine, the death rate had declined to very low levels. A similar scenario occurred with the water borne diseases cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. The effect of these diseases peaked and then dwindled with less control from the physician. These diseases can be said to have lost much of their virulence and their social impact long before their etiology was understood and a specific therapy developed for them. The same case goes for other diseases that have been considered mass killers among children such as whooping cough, diphtheria and measles. There had been a major decline in infant mortality way long before the introduction of the much praised antibiotics or even the widespread immunization. The decline was as a result of reduction the activities of micro-organism and improvement in housing condition (Ivan, 1975, pg17). But the dominant factor was better nutrition that had made the host to develop higher resistance to these micro-organisms. This factor can be supported by the fact that despite availability of medical care in countries where nutrition is poor, diarrhea and upper-respiratory tract infections are common conditions that last longer and lead to high death rate among children. In short, it is not about medical care because when the early epidemics declined and vanished, they were replaced by conditions that are associated with nutrition. Consequently, when nutrition was improved, modern epidemics have taken over and despite advanced and intensive research, there is no substantive explanation as to the cause of new epidemics such as cancer, hypertension, diabetes and other diseases that continue to plague mankind. There are two things are distinctive, the elimination of mortality of old form cannot be solely credited to the so called professional practice of the so called physicians. Then again, the physicians cannot be held responsible for the suffering caused by new diseases as the expectancy of life goes up (Ivan, 1975, pg19). Disease trend analysis has over the past one century proved that the general health of any given population is mostly determined by the environment. The connection between medical geography, disease history, and the anthropology of medicine without leaving out the social history that has been held towards illness, has shown that the stability of any population has to match with the correlation between the basics of food, water and air, in conjunction with sociopolitical equality. These factors have been found out to generally determine how the feeling of grownups about their health and also the age at which they are likely to die. With the decline of old diseases, undernourishment on one hand and over consumptions of poisons and mutagens found in food is the new problem for the poor and the rich respectively. Conversely, doctors have helped develop modern techniques which to a certain degree can be said to have effectively become part of the human culture and also impacted the environment. These measures can be said to have had some form of impact on the general health even when applied independently of professional help (Martin & Larsen, 1981,pg 57). Such measures include but are not limited to contraception, water treatment, and use of soap among others. These practices were stated by the courageous few who were ready to stand for their ideologies. This however does not qualify such material used to be classified as medical equipment. The incorporation of these things into the human culture has brought about shifts in the mortality from younger groups to the older ones. Useless medical treatment That contemporary medicine is highly effective is an impression that has been created out or egalitarian rhetoric formed from the fact that modern medical technology is highly effective. While it a fact that cannot be disputed that certain specific procedures that are very limited in number have proved to be very effective and very useful over the last generation, there have been monopolized by professionals so that they are typically used as their tools of trade (Michael & Jonathan, 2004,pg 24). But where such procedures are inexpensive and the level of skill required is low, then they are not monopolized. Most of today’s expensive medical care is geared towards the latter description, which makes it very questionable as to why it is very expensive and yet its effectiveness is extremely doubtful. A distinction between diseases that are infectious and those that are not is important at this point. Chemotherapy has been important in controlling of certain diseases such as pneumonia, gonorrhea and syphilis resulting in low death rate. Therefore, it is safe to say that disease like syphilis and typhoid can be easily treated and the rise in venereal diseases is not as a result of ineffectual medicine. Whats more, reappearance of malaria is not by lack of anti-malarial drugs but as a result of mosquitoes that are resistant to pesticide. While vaccines have played a major role in the decline of some disease like whooping cough and measles hence reinforcing the popular belief of progress in the medicine field, it is also true that for other diseases that are infectious, drugs have not been so much effective against them. Conversely, the medical intervention in dealing with noninfectious diseases has a questionable record, while some progress has been achieved in certain areas like caries prevention through the use of fluoride in water, the really cost of this has never been understood. In the case of diabetes and the replacement theory, it has only been proven to have a short term effect. The same case goes for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure. Doctor inflicted injuries Harmful medical care is causing more pain and havoc than accidents from traffic and industries combined or even injuries from wars. It is so disturbing that the impact of medical care can be said to be among the most rapidly spreading epidemics of modern times. That only malnutrition is the highest killer compared to iatrogenic diseases is something very disturbing. Iatrogenic disease in the simplest of definition is an illness that comes about as result of not putting in a place a sound and professional treatment as recommended. But in a broad term, a situation where the remedies prescribed by a physician, or where the physician or the hospital where the treatment is sort becomes the cause of sickness, then this can be referred to clinical Iatrogenesis . This kind of scenario has been around as long as medicine itself has been in place. That medicine has been potentially harmful or even poisonous is not a new thing. However, the alarming fact is that the increase in the side effects that are harmful and unwanted, have risen with widespread use of medicine. The shocking statistics reveal that in even in the most developed of nations like the U.S.A and the United Kingdom, 50 to 80 percent of the populations who are adults are victims of wrongly prescribed medicines (Deborah, 2005,42). This is usually in form of expired drugs or those that are not up to the standard or simply, the right drugs but wrongly combined. Still, the problem could be the use of contaminated syringes. If wrongly used, drugs can be addictive, mutilating or mutagenic if used in combination of food coloring or even insecticides. In adverse cases, antibiotics can alter bacterial flora and the resulting impact can be a super infection in which the host can be invaded by organisms that are resistant. Yet some drugs themselves can be the agent that causes bacteria that is resistant to drugs to breed, causing a ubiquity of nostrums. Moreover, the treatment of nonexistent diseases is on the increase of the disabling effect (Deborah, 2005, 46). In the medical practice, infirmities and pain that are often caused by the doctors have always been a part of the practice. Malpractices such as incompetence and negligence on the part of the physician have been there since time memorial. The tragedy of our time is the rationalization of these malpractices into respectable status by the use of medical terms. The role of a doctor has been transformed from that of a person attending to another known individual to one of that of a technician that is supposed to apply a set of rules that are scientific to patients that have been classified. The doctor is no longer held responsible for betraying the trust and the confidence of the patient but rather the fault is blamed on the equipment that broke down or the negligence on the part of the doctor is simply referred to human error (Ivan, 1975, pg 28). While physician callousness can simply be referred to “scientific detachment’’, lack of specialized equipment is a new name for incompetence. In the United States, it is estimated that, while hospitalized, 7 percent of patients end up suffering compensable injuries but it is only a few who do something about. It goes further to state that it is only the mines and high rise construction industries that out do hospitals in the number of accidents. The shocking part is that of the children deaths; accidents are the major cause. Additionally, the most pathogenic hospitals have been found to be the university hospitals (Deborah, 2005, pg 23). The story is no different in the research hospitals where it is reported that out of every five patients admitted there, one usually contract iatrogenic disease which most times is trivial leading to the need of specialized treatment. The end result is usually out of this cases, one of the thirty reported cases results in death. The cause of this complication is usually either drug therapy or diagnostic procedures. If something like this was to happen in other sphere of life, the consequence would be dire and immediate, but in the medical world, the blame is always shifted to the victim. Defenseless patient The first level that results from contact with pathogenic medicine is the undesirable side –effect that is as a result of technical contact with medical system either mistakenly or in a callous manner. This also covers the scope of damage that is done as the doctor tries to cover himself or herself against the consequence of her or his malpractice which usually results to more damage than the iatrogenic stimulus itself. The second level of this is whereby a morbid society is encouraged to consume medicines that are curative, preventive or even environmental. The result is that people are exempted from industrial work and therefore cannot participate in the political struggle that is meant to shape the society that makes them sick in the very first place. The overall effect is over medicalization resulting in the expropriation of health, a condition that we can call social iatrogenesis. The third level is where the aim is to destroy people’s potential to deal with their human weakness in a manner that is both personal and autonomous. The overall desire is to have people in grip through the contemporary medicine. A better description of cultural iatrogenes is a condition where the health care is designed on model that is engineered to create better health as if it were a commodity (Sarah, 2005, pg 28). The worrying trend is that these levels of iatrogenesis are medically irreversible and yet they are right in the middle of the medical endeavor so to speak. These medical resistant iatrogenesis, which are unwanted by nature, are not only a byproduct of social or the physiological progress, but forms the very core of the diagnostic therapeutic processes hence the pathogens that contribute to epidemic. The result is that any measures put in place to prevent damage to patients’ results from treatment. It also becomes a danger that only acts to reinforce the loop that already exists escalating the destruction because the procedures meant to be antipollution devices are themselves polluted. Political Transmission of Iatrogenic Disease Medicine has all been about to enhance that which naturally occurs. It was about fostering the healing of wounds as a tendency, enhancing the clotting of blood, giving natural immunity of the power to overcome bacteria. But there has been a shift in all this over the years and the focus now is geared towards engineering dreams through reasons. A good example is the use of oral contraceptives to try and alter normal occurrences in a person who is healthy. To achieve this, interaction between organisms induced through therapy either with molecules or machines is engineered in way devoid of evolution (Ivan, 1975, pg 36). This in my view calls for a thorough assessment of the so called process without the medical profession so as to ensure that the success of these processes by the so called specialist is clearly and professionally in line with the interest of the patient. This however can only constitute the first step against indictment of pathogenic medicine. Social Iatrogenesis Medicine does not only undermine the health of individuals through an aggression that is direct in nature but also through the impact it has on social organization too. This is accomplished through a sociopolitical mode and is often referred to as social Iatrogenesis. Social iatrogenesis encompasses many forms such creating ill-health through stress as a result of increased medical bureaucracy. It also includes increasing disabling dependence, ensuring there are painful needs, or abolishing the very right to self-care all together (Michael & Jonathan, 2004, pg 27). Another way of achieving this is through turning health care to an item of standard like a staple necessity. Medical Monopoly Social iatrogenesis can also escalate to become a characteristic that is so inherent in the medical system through the crossing of the critical threshold allowed in biomedical intervention. This occurs into a form of medical pervasion that is incurable from a state of errors, minor accidents or even faults. Radical monopoly takes many forms and therefore goes much deeper in comparison to monopoly practiced by either a government or a corporation (Ivan, 1975, pg 34). If hospitals are left to exercise monopoly, then they can impose on the society death that is of its form. Social iatrogenesis if not checked can reach incurable levels that can only be corrected through political actions based on professional dominance. Since a radical monopoly is known to feed on its own very self, the very essence of iatrogenic medicine is to ensure that it creates an economic activity by reinforcing a control system that ensures that the population is morbid. This is achieved through creating social arrangements that are said to be legitimate despite the fact that not many people fit into them. Social iatrogenesis as an issue should not be confused with the healer’s diagnostic authority. The argument that medicine cannot exist without disease creation be it iatrogenic, is a notion that should not be accepted at any cost. That illness is always created by medicine and that the possibility of acting sick is for the individual and the healer because the remedy at work has poisonous potential as well. Medicine as a moral enterprise gives content to both the good and the evil and it also defines the normal, proper, and the desirable. While one can be said to be sick even though s/he does not approve it, the other one will be said to be legitimately sick. The legal and the guilty is determined by the judge, the holy and the unholy is left to the priest, and the same goes for a physician who describes what is a symptom and what is a sickness. He is generally charged with the inquisitorial powers to decide what is wrong and need to be corrected (Ivan, 1975, pg 34). Medicine is the full time duty of the so called specialist who generally tends to control people by the use of institutions that are bureaucratic in nature. Medicine has been divorced from morality and the defense put forward is the lame excuse that medical categories are founded on scientific foundations that are not prone to moral evaluation. The result has been the secreting of medical ethics to departments that are considered special and the only ones considered to bring forth theory so that they can be in line with the real practice. Medical damage that is politically mediated is seen as inherent mandate of the medicine practice and those who criticize this are often labeled sophists who are only trying to bring a lay intrusion as far as the medical world is concerned. To understand the depth of medicalization of life, all one has to do is to take a look at the amount of one’s income that goes to the doctor every year. This keeps on rising as the cost of health services keeps going up every year. However this raising cost can never be explained in a better way as to why it keeps increasing. It is always blamed on product change, progress in technology, raise in labor cost and such like stories. However, the truth is that hospitals continue to provide expensive products in a manner that the clients do not necessarily need. Conclusion Medical care is not a commodity that is staple in nature that must be purchased by every human. There are more questions than answers concerning the operations and the morality of the specialists that are in charge of the medical care. Furthermore, it not true that medicine was solely responsible for the elimination of the epidemics that plagued man in the early days, because if this was true, then there would be no more modern epidemics in form of incurable diseases like there are today. This is for the reason that the research that has been done on the medical arena is intensive and wide and therefore should have provided a solution to all these epidemics. The notion that contemporary medicine is very effective is a notion that cannot be taken as the truth because contemporary medicine has proved to have more flaws than solutions. Moreover, the so called specialists have proved to monopolize every good invention with the sole aim of making it a tool of trade in order to continue with their monopolistic control that is meant to benefit them. That it takes more than a good medical care to contain the effect of epidemic diseases is a factor that has been established beyond doubt because it has been realized that the mere presence of doctors in a population does not mean the absence of disease or sickness. As in most cases, the specialist doctors are present because there are other professional who can afford to pay for their services. Additionally, it has been established that nutrition plays a key role in the health of any given population. As observed, with the improvement of nutrition came the improvement in the health population because the resistance level to disease and infection was improved. As a result, the effect of many diseases on the population was contained. It is also evident that nonprofessional measures that are healthy have played a key role in the improvement of the generally health of the human population. Not forgetting the role that the environment plays in ensuring that the burden of human suffering through disease is relieved. Finally, it goes without saying that just like any belief system has a way of looking at the world from a certain perspective; medicine is also just a belief system. 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