What is Modern Medicine?

What is Modern Medicine?

In the 18 and 19th centuries, blood letting, leeches and purging were considered state of the art.

When I graduated from Medical School in 1967 - the major cause of heart attacks, strokes, cerebral haemorrhage, kidney failure, blindness and death was - believe it or not - high blood pressure (hypertension).  Since then BP lowering drugs have been developed so there are now very few people who suffer from this problem - drugs do save lives. We have antibiotics which kill bacteria and have again made feared diseases like puerperal sepsis (sepsis at birth), pneumonia, TB etc problems of the past.  However with the widespread use of antibiotics in medicine and veterinary practice, many of these are beginning to reappear in drug resistant forms. 
We still have no answers to cancer, immune diseases, virus diseases, neurological diseases - both in their prevention and cure, and most of modern medicine involves treating symptoms without necessarily improving survival or outcomes. 
Gene therapy, targeting cancer cells with immune therapy and similar techniques are probably the next step in the advancing march of medicine, but again all of this concentration is closing the gate after the horse has bolted.   Much much better, prevent the diseases from developing in the first place.
We have forgotten the wonder of the human body and also nature which has kept  us sustained and healthy for  hundreds of thousands of years - as far as we know, cancer, coronary disease, Alzheimer's, immune diseases were rare until the last century.   We need to look also  at our world - pollution and toxins which we put in and around our bodies, poor nutrition and lack of exercise are all creating bodies ripe for the development of today's diseases. 

This Pharmacists map from the 1930's click here (for full size)gives a fascinating commentary on how health is changing.  In modern medicine only approved drugs made by the pharmaceutical industry are considered appropriate to administer to our patients.  Natural, complementary or alternative therapies are discouraged or  even banned because they may  interfere with our  'proven' therapies -  even though the third  cause of death in the USA is pharmaceutical drugs.  But here we have evidence from the 1930's that many of today's  so called  'snake oils' were being used by doctors and health practitioners very effectively.   Why effectively -  well because many of them contained  drugs which we use today ( aspirin, quinine, local anaesthetics, caster oil, psyllium, cafergot, ipecac, morphine...the map is quite fascinating, and how many more of these early remedies may possibly be beneficial?   For example there is good evidence that cannabis oil,  CBD the non psychoactive ingredient of cannabis can help with epilepsy, other neurological diseases and even cancer.)


It will be many years before we reach the stage of having a wand that diagnoses and cures like Doc
in Star Trek, diseases, bacteria and viruses do have a cunning ability to change and become resistant to whatever therapy humankind can develop.   Concentrating on prevention, supporting and protecting our bodies, and looking more at what nature has provided will really become a Modern Medicine which will not need to change.

Informed consent before angioplasty

Most patients are not given informed consent.

Less than 2% of angioplasty patient are properly informed!

Before taking any prescribed drugs, or undergoing any form of elective treatment, in today's medical world it is assumed that the patient is informed about the need for the procedure, and also its risks and benefits. One of the most frequently performed

procedures in the Western world is coronary artery angioplasty, usually for patients with angina.  A recent study in the JAMA Internal Medicine makes horrifying reading.(click here).  In this paper 59 patients listed for coronary angioplasty had the discussion between themselves and their cardiologist concerning informed consent, recorded. (One would have thought the cardiologist knowing that he or she was being recorded would do better than usual).
There are seven basic elements to informed consent:
1. The patient knows they have a role of the decision.
2. Discussion of the issues and decisions at hand.
3. Discussion of the alternatives.
4. Discussions of the pros and cons of the alternatives.
5. Discussion of the uncertainties.
6. An assessment of the patient's understanding.
7. Exploration of the patient's preference.

Most patients believed that the procedure (angioplasty) reduces the risk of heart attacks and death, but in fact this is not correct. Angioplasty merely reduces the symptoms.

The findings of the study were very sobering – only 3% of the discussions included all elements of informed consent, and just 14% met a more limited definition of the procedure, alternatives and risks. 97% were good at discussing the procedure, but alternative procedures were offered only to 25% of cases. Also the majority of patients were not aware that they had a role in the decision-making process.

There is a real concern worldwide that coronary angioplasty is being performed a great deal more than it should be. There is no evidence, other than reducing symptoms that it does any benefit, and this is not what the general public believe. Even the conservative medical bodies and journals are beginning to discuss this, as not only is the procedure expensive, but it also does have significant risks, and there are other alternatives.

Make absolutely certain that any drug or procedure that you are about to undertake does more good than harm!