Thoughts on Medicine

There is only one medical system accepted in the United States. This medical system has grown into an entity in which the bottom-line alone counts, causing many to either put their house on the market to pay for medical bills, hopefully find a competent holistic practitioner who will help improve their health for much less, or gamble that doing nothing will work. This often produces a very stressful and sometimes hopeless situation.

Just like our idea that we can educate everyone the same way (mass production...that stems from the mind frame of industrialization), we also think that everyone can be treated the same way if they are sick, regardless of age, culture, whether they are white, Asian or African American, south or north of the equator, female or male. (North of the equator water going down the drain will go clockwise, while south of the equator it will go counter clockwise). There are obviously influences that need to be considered in medicine and everything we do.

There is an enormous fear that pervades medicine in America that revolves around the threat of losing money. The bottom-line is definitely the cause of medicine having become so impersonal. If there is any threat of losing money the medical system will do everything in their power to protect their interests. By doing so, we have a monopoly as well as an oppressive system of healthcare in place which needs repair. There are several very effective healthcare systems in the world. The Homeopathic system, the Chinese system, the Auruyvedic system are only a couple of good examples. Queen Elizabeth of England for example uses a Homeopathic physician. The man is from India. I do not remember his name anymore, but he has traveled to the US as well as other places to give talks and classes to anyone who will listen.

Currently, a court can order a parent to take their underage son or daughter to a treatment center for cancer. That is definitely making it an oppressive system. What if these parents wish to find another system to deal with the disease? Considering how many misdiagnoses happen, hospital deaths, hospital generated infections, over-medication and other major problems who can fault a parent to look for all possibilities?

CNN brought to the airways a program on 25 Shocking Medical Mistakes. I will only mention a few of these here:

Treating the wrong patient for the wrong disease;

Wrong dosages in medication; tools forgotten and sewed up inside patients during surgery;

Toxic transplants, which cost patients who hoped to recover their lives;

An air bubble in blood after a central line was removed, again resulting in death of patient who should have been ready to go home and this does not include the many other fatal consequences.

In comparison, mistakes in other systems do not have as tragic outcomes. Obviously, patients die in every system. However, those systems are also less invasive and hence will do in most instances less harm. Up to now, people have been warned against using herbs for their flu or colds with the guise that they mask symptoms causing the lack of the antibiotics they need or possibility of death from lack of treatment. At the same time, we have people coming to emergency rooms who get prescriptions for which they cannot afford to pay. Several people have died because of that.

Would not Echinacea and Vitamin C at least give these patients some help and hopefully prevent the worst? Alternative methods have proven useful to me, as I do not have medical insurance. I have treated most any health problem (even serious ones) for decades now with homeopathic remedies, or if they were not available with herbs, reflexology and other means.

Are we really practicing better medicine? Since every medical system suffers under some incompetence (or shall we call it “quackery”), should we not humble ourselves and, open our eyes to other effective ways to treat illness, by remembering ‘to do no harm’. Can each system do everything? We fall short in quite a few areas! By devaluing other systems, our own system shows a great ignorance fueled by fear. This would be amusing if it was not so sad and led to a witch-hunt. Unless we come to that humility, it will be difficult to make progress in medicine. In medical science, we do make plenty of progress, however it is more and more often resulting in Frankenstein medicine methods; i.e. human guinea pigs. Yet we still cannot cure the common cold. Our medical system is obsessed with disease not with health and wellness. Otherwise, we would pay the doctors for keeping us well and deduct money from their salary if we get ill.

Now let me present a new direction of thought. In Christian thought, we will come across the term Imago Dei. Imago Dei means nothing less than that we as humans have a God spark within us, we are created in God's Image. If you are not a Christian, that may be difficult to wrap your mind around. Bear with me, if a Great Mind was at the source of all creation, (and even the big bang would have needed a thought and Will behind it), we would have a piece of that mind in us, for we all are God's creation. If that Greater Mind, as experienced by many as benevolence, true peace, love and God connectedness could be found and experienced again, disease would not exist. Remembering who we are gives us the power to heal ourselves.

So what is disease? I believe disease results from humanity shutting down their connectedness to the Greater Mind (God, Universal power). God or the Greater Mind created all that is. Hence, our innermost essence is benevolent creativity. By stalemating this benevolent creativity through fear, the bottom-line, and resulting oppressive tactics, we cause that piece of us which belongs to the Greater Mind to stagnate and go into hiding. Of course, we have oppressed that benevolent creative energy for hundreds of years in one way or another, this is not a recent phenomena. Hence, I believe for that reason disease is possible, since we have abandoned the wisdom of our benevolent creativity, illness has become just something we deal with, a normal occurrence. However, I am not sure it should be considered a normal occurrence.

There is good news, now there are some doctors who are doing research in the “Mind-Body connection”. They are in the process of proving that our mind and spirit, our thoughts and emotions have an enormous impact on our health and ability to heal.

This brings the discussion back to the beginning of this entry; different people need different medical treatments. What we need is an open mind to all the available possibilities and the humility to accept that our western medical system is not the only one that works in treating diseases.

Western/allopathic medicine separates itself feeling superior, while other medical systems could complement it and increase the base knowledge. Some doctors who are researching other options will hopefully change that in the coming years. In many ways, our medical system acts as religion did centuries ago, it engages in a witch-hunt against those who differ in opinion, practice and knowledge. The faiths do not want to come together to learn more about their creator and each other’s knowledge and  allopathic medicine does not want to engage in conversation with other medical systems. I leave you with the thought that contrary to this, we are made to be in one another’s company, learning and sharing information, caring and love. Contrary to what we are taught, there also is more than one way to do medicine!!!

Documentaries you might enjoy to watch (available on Netflix)

“Burzynski “(a successful cancer doctor who is enduring the witch hunt of the medical establishment)

“The Business of Being Born”

“Pregnant in America”

“The new medicine”

Open your mind:

Read up on various types of medicine and treatments. Read especially about things you think you already know enough about. You might be surprised what you might learn.


© 2013 Angelika Mitchell