163 Medicine

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Medicine is not a science. Medicine has components of science, and the people involved are smugly certain what they know is proven, but in fact, at least half of what they call “evidence-based medicine” is bunk, and almost all of the purveyors of alternative medicine are little more than witch-doctors & shaman. Your personal doctor is little better, he, and more often now, she, is guessing. They're prescribing drugs that don't do anything, and they're diagnosing based on intuition. Most of the remedies rely more on placebo effect than efficaciousness. Unless you're going to the hospital for a broken arm or to get your gall-bladder removed, most of what goes on there is voodoo.</p> <p>The U.S. trails every other advanced nation in medical outcome, yet it spends by far the most as % of GNP. Some people get great service, have their every whim catered to, but as a nation, our healthcare is hit-or-miss. Hospitals are little fiefdoms run by doctors for doctors, where the inefficiency is astounding, Nurses Unions are a nightmare, and everything is expensive for no good reason. They are chrome & glass palaces, more akin to monuments than functional buildings: nothing is standardized & there is resistance to automation. Computers could replace diagnosticians which may be why doctors are now trained as much in “empathy” as they are anatomy. Empathy is the reversing of control to the patient, with the doctor assuming a role similar to a masseuse at the spa: from respected patriarchy to service-provider. Medicine has entered the realm of popular culture with all the sensationalism, vapid argument & petty jealousies that entails.</p>