Chapter 17 our health

We keep reminding ourselves that we spend $80 billion a year on our health, maybe $90 billion now?Regardless of whether it is 80 billion or 90 billion, that is a shocking number. As long as it is mentioned, it will mean that there is such a huge and powerful organization, which is organized and coordinated quite complicatedly.Yet again, it's a bewildering, nerve-wracking institution that steadily grows without anyone planning or managing it.How much money was spent last year can only be found out after the money is spent; no one can be sure how much will be on the bill next year.Attracted by such big questions, social scientists began to come from all over the world to see what happened up close; economists came all over the city, shaking their heads and smacking their lips here, inputting more and more data into the computer, trying to figure out, Whether it is a functioning institution or a house of paper, it has nothing to do with it.There seems to be no doubt about the amount being spent, but where and why it is being spent is not so clear.

When it comes to this matter, people are greedy for convenience and always sum it up in one word, saying that this is a "health cause".This creates the illusion that this is an unquestionable product created in response to people's needs, that is, health.Thus, health care became the new name of medicine.Now, what doctors do is health care, and hospitals and other professionals work together with doctors, which is collectively called health care.Patients become consumers of health.Once on this road, there is no end to it.Just recently, in order to correct the various malpractices, partiality, logical flaws, and bankruptcy of today's health care system, the government created a new official organization called a health care organization, and everyone is already familiar with it as HMO (Health Maintenance Organization).This kind of institution spreads all over the country like post offices, ready to distribute the neatly packaged health, just like there are really a large number of health that are newly prepared in the warehouse for distribution.

Sooner or later we are going to get in trouble for this word.The term is too specific and definite to be used as a euphemism, and that is exactly what we seem to be using as one.I worry that we will use its meaning far-fetchedly to obscure a reality.This reality cannot be said, and we seem to have tacitly avoided talking about it publicly.But in any case, disease and death still exist, and the cover cannot cover it.The usual diseases still plague us, and we have not got them under control.They do whatever they want, attack us at will, and make us unpredictable.Only after they emerge can we begin to deal with them.Our medical work can only be passive in this way. It doesn't matter whether the doctor dies or the doctor lives. We can only do our best.

The world would be a better place if things weren't like this.But the fact is this: the occurrence of disease is not just our neglect of health care.We get sick not just because we let our guard down.Most diseases, especially serious ones, come blindly and suddenly, and we don't know how to prevent them.We really aren't that good at disease prevention or health care.At least not yet.We won't be good at it either, unless one day we know a lot about the mechanism of disease. On this point, of course, everyone disagrees.There are some believers among us who believe that once we have a health care system that works, this country will become some kind of big spa that offers preventive medicine like the labels on the bottles of mineral water in Europe say The: Cure all diseases, regardless of kidney deficiency and spleen heat, it will be cured.

Astonishingly, we do not yet know that this word is an unfulfilled spell.A person who has been mentally sound for decades is not guaranteed to have schizophrenia in the future; similarly, the mental health center of the society cannot guarantee the mental health of the society.While these venerable institutions are clearly useful in dealing with some forms of mental illness, that's another story. I condemn these words because they sound too much like promised promises.A health care organization, if well organized and well financed, will have the best characteristics of a clinic and hospital and should be of value to any society.But people in this society would expect its new name to live up to its name.With the health care sign on the door, it would become the official institution distributing health, and if anyone afterward had a difficult heart attack, or multiple sclerosis, or rheumatoid arthritis, or something that could neither be prevented nor Most cancers that cannot be cured, or chronic nephritis, or stroke, or temper depression, then people will inevitably look around and whisper.

At the same time, far too little attention and importance has been paid to the durability and strength of human tissue itself.The most unwavering tendencies of human tissue are stability and balance.It is a distortion to portray the human body as a foreign contraption that collapses when touched, breaks when used, always needs to be carefully cared for, always repaired, and always on the verge of breaking.Not only distorted, but also somewhat ungrateful.This is the most commonly heard dogma of all information media, and it is also the most cogent dogma.We should really build a better health education system, use more class hours to thank and even celebrate our good health-to be honest, most of us are in good health most of the time, good Extremely.

Familiar questions remain before us regarding the needs of the future in medicine.In a perfect health care system, ideally speaking, what other items should be set up?How to estimate, in the most reasonable situation, how many doctors, nurses, medicines, laboratory tests, hospital beds, X-ray fluoroscopy, etc. are needed for each patient every year?I propose a new method for generating answers to these questions, which is to examine carefully the most sophisticated, knowledgeable, and presumably satisfied customers who are now in and out of the health care facility at any time.That is, how well-trained, experienced, family-aged, middle-aged physicians use every aspect of today's medical technology in their daily lives.

I think I can design this questionnaire by myself.In the past five years, how many laboratory tests of any kind have you had in your family, including yourself?How many times have you had a comprehensive physical examination?How many X-rays and EKGs?How many times a year have you prescribed antibiotics to yourself and your family?How many times have you lived in the hospital?How many operations have you had?How many times have you seen a psychiatrist?How many times have you officially seen a doctor, any doctor, including yourself? I bet if you get that information and you take everything into account, you'll see that there are some numbers that are quite different from what the official projections are for the entire population right now.I've tried this in a less scientific way than by asking a bunch of my friends.The data I have been given is not yet robust, but it is fairly consistent.These data show that none of my physician friends had a routine physical examination after serving in the military; very few had taken X-rays, except for dental visits; almost all of them refused surgery; Laboratory tests are rarely performed.They use a lot of aspirin, but they seem to rarely prescribe it, and they almost never give antibiotics when they have a fever.That's not to say they never got sick; these people had just as many morbidities as anybody else, mostly respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments, had just as much anxiety and eccentric thoughts, and had just as much -- overall Not much to say - a terrible or devastating disease.

Some will counter that internists and their families are actually resident patients in the hospital and cannot be compared with other people.When every family member shows up at the breakfast table, that meeting is actually a doctor's home visit, and the father is a family doctor in every sense of the word.Well said.However, this is all the more reason to expect a more optimal use of the full spectrum of medical technology.Here there are no distance limitations, the entire health care system is close at hand, readily available, and of course all items cost less than in a home without a doctor.All the factors that limit the use of medical institutions by ordinary people do not exist here.

If my hunch, based on a small sample of my physician friends, is correct, these people appear to be practicing modern medicine in a very different way than we have been systematically educating the public to do for 80 years. .Saying that this is "the cobbler's child has no shoes" is not justified.Doctors' families do like to complain that they don't get the same medical care as their friends and neighbors, but they are normal, usually healthy people, and diseases diagnosed by doctors are much less common. The secret, which physicians know, and their wives learned shortly after they got married, but is kept secret from the general public, is that most ailments don't need to be cured.Yes, most problems will be better in the morning.

Conceivably, if we could rein in ourselves, and our computers, not to design a system in which two hundred million people are all presumed to be at risk of deteriorating health on a daily basis, we would A new system could be created with the aim of ensuring balance, providing anyone with the good medical care they need.Our justice system presumes us innocent when we cannot be proven guilty.By the same token, the healthcare system works best by assuming that most of us are healthy.Left alone, computers will work the other way around, taking it for granted that every moment calls for some kind of immediate, persistent, professional intervention to preserve the health of every citizen.At that time, we have nothing to do with our money but spend it on it.Besides, if we are to change in time this way of living together, especially in cities, we have many other things to do.The health of society is another issue, more complex and more pressing.We have bills to pay for more than just physical health.