Bogus medical journals

Most doctors are not researchers. We get medical journals in the mailbox and dh never even cracks the spine. Doctors work long work weeks- come home to family and chores- and don't have time for reading- not even fun reading.
Most doctors have little understanding of statistics and appropriate study guidelines.
When a doctor recommends a medicine their knowledge and understanding of that med comes from pharma reps.
That is why it is so important for us to research our diagnosis' and all the recommendations of our doctors and report back to them. We are responsible not only for our care but for educating the doctor. This is the only way our medical system will serve us well- if we decide to have a vested interest in our care and the care of others.

hello all and best wishes for a wonderful mothers day to an extraordinary group of mothers...

thanks for both your posts louise and alemama. sadly, business has usurped much of what was once relatively objective science. few scientists in academia whose work has any practical application fail to supplement their income with consulting contracts with various companies which can create an obvious conflict of interest with the process of objective science. probably nowhere is this problem more egregious than in big pharma. the whole medical system is supported by the pharma companies. they compete at the hospital system level to determine what the overall pharmacopeia for the system will be...not necessarily what's best for the patients, but what provides the hospital system the best margins. the independent docs are continuously bribed by the reps. i did some consulting with a local doc and every day the reps would show up with lunch for everyone in the office. we were relocating her office and at one point she realized she'd failed to make lunch arrangements. she immediately called the drug rep and 20 minutes later they were there with seven pizzas. on a saturday. i've worked in many industries and no other business would tolerate this kind of bribery.

re doctors, they are trained as practitioners, not researchers. as you say they have little time to do the work they get paid for much less stay on top of the literature. most doctors hate their work at this point based on the docs i've spoken to. they are part of an insurance driven industrial medical factory system and they rarely get to practice the kind of thoughtful, caring medicine that drew them to medicine in the first place. it is not a lucrative business for anyone but the insurance and drug companies at this point.

is it our responsibility to educate our doctors? i'm not sure i agree with that premise, alemama. as consumers, i believe we should expect qualified practitioners. sadly, as we see in the case of prolapse, they may not exist within the system. the difficult and painful issue here, in my view, is coming to terms with the fact that the medical system is not the safety net to protect us from death and disability that we have all been raised in the west to believe it to be. some things the system does at a level that can only be called miraculous (e.g. trauma). but i don't need to tell you how poorly women fare in the system.

the medical system has done a fabulous job of selling itself to us as the be all and end all of life saving. we don't have to worry about death when the system in on watch. the reality of course is much different. our bodies are not cars that we can just drop off at the shop when the transmission fails. taking ownership of our lives, our health and even our deaths is both practical and spiritual work. if as a society we continue to buy the fantasy that the medical system has all the answers, we will continue to line up like sheep to the slaughter and the corrupt medical system will continue to do its damage.

if we dig deeper we see that big pharma is part of a larger systemic problem, the capital markets. it is taken for granted in our world that capital is essentially divine. nothing should interfere with its ebb and flow. bigger is better. growth of capital is the font of all good things. there is truth in this, but not the whole truth. my work in consulting has shown me that people's behavior is largely shaped by the ecosystem in which they work. big public companies live in the ecosystem of the capital markets. the leaders of these companies largely live or die by quarterly results. if their companies are not growing growing growing their boards (representing big investors) will replace the leaders.

the irony of course, is that companies cannot grow indefinitely, a fact seemingly ignored by most public boards of directors. but this ecosystem, with its various rewards and punishments, draws out of people a certain style of behavior. the percentage of senior mangers at tobacco companies that smoke is far higher than the population as a whole. how else can they justify their existence? likewise, you cannot achieve leadership in a big pharma company without totally subscribing to the party line: drugs are good or more accurately, drugs that we can patent and make billions with are good. conversely, natural remedies for which there is no patent protection and which therefore have limited profit potential get ignored, in spite of the potential to relieve suffering. the nature of tribes is that for a member to survive, you have to follow the rules of the tribe, and drink whatever brand of pink kool-aid the leadership demands.

commerce, per se is amoral. unfortunate, but true. the challenge for thoughtful people is to make their way in the world in moral, spiritually meaningful ways. this is why the shaman lives at the edge of the village. s/he cannot be a full participant in the life of the village without losing that objectivity necessary for the health of the tribe. there is a cost associated with this. but a value as well. to the shaman, the cost of drinking the kool-aid is way too high.

thanks for the opportunity to editorialize!

lots of love to you all...

lanny