"Often, negative health and lifestyle choices are made because of a lack of knowledge, and it's my passion to increase the public's awareness of the health tragedies facing the nation. I will give you, the consumer, the tools to become a major force for good health and to alleviate disease and suffering.
At Mercola.com, we have been steadily working to introduce innovative software that will accelerate this process, but finishing the manuscript of my book pushed the project back a bit. The beta version will be released shortly and I hope to have the full version out very soon.
The software will help all of us to transform the system together."
This is a direct quote from the follow-up article that was originally posted. It smells an awful lot like a money grab by the Family D.O. running the site.
#1) The first line is a huge cop-out. If an individual can come to me with a straight face and say "I had no idea that eating crap food, sitting on my ass, smoking, and drinking would lead to poor long-term health outcomes," I would have two thoughts pop into my head..........First, dont play poker with this person......second, when is your mommy picking you up?
Classic US mindset at work here. Take no responsibility for your own actions and find someone else to blame when the shit hits the fan (see Jack Russell lawsuit above; the Fat Bastard nipple rub must've been a go-to move in the sack before "Taz" gave that shyster a Nurple!).
#2) Prescription drugs of all kinds are poisons in their own way. Trust me when I say I can walk you down any grocery store medicine aisle and get 5 different OTC meds, spend $75 and kill someone. Now take these stats on drug errors and adverse outcomes from hospital administered meds with a grain of salt. Break them down case by case and I would put the total number of meds the patient is already taking at 5'. Think of it like running thru minefield where you know where the mines are......its easy to dodge one or two, but you start sprinkling them around and you are going to have an interaction, some severe. Couple that with the overall poor health of a patient that leads to long lists of medicines (one for my cholesterol, 3 for BP, one to sleep, 2 for pain, one blood thinner......) and its a recipe for disaster.
We try to minimize prescriptions case-by-case b/c of this brutal fact, but the inmates run the asylum in our system. "I feel bad, so make me feel better." Information is out there for all to see. I encourage patients to research what their problems are and the medicines they take. I encourage them to ask questions, even at the risk of having to run to the computer to get the answer myself if I don't recall it directly. Just don't forget the fact that this is info, not experience.
This article is general numbers-juggling. I know it was published in JAMA by a physician, but if you really belive that health professionals knock off 250K patients / yr, you're nuts. These hospital outcomes are multi-factorial. Admitted patients are sick, man. They all bring old problems to the latest pathologic process. Yes, we make mistakes. Yes, these errors can be avoided. Yes, we try every day to dodge these bullets. Bad things still, and always will happen. Much like a Major League ump, we live in a world where you are expected to perfect at the moment you are least ready to be perfect, then get better every day. We put in the effort early and often to gain the experience that allows us to do the right thing almost all the time. Our motivation is a passion for the process.
Counting college, med school, residency, and time on wire, I have put 14yrs into this business. Don't even remember my 20s except for that lovely anti-septic smell we all know. Roughly 35,000 patient encounters. You might be able to read Web MD, but we know what someone trying to die looks like.We are not just guessing and checking off boxes on the order sheet to cover our asses. The ball will go on the ground now and again, no matter if its the first patient of the day/nite, or the last after 10hrs of body blows (2 minutes for a mixed analogy), but we're not trying to kill you!! Have some faith that motivated, intelligent, compassionate individuals are in the business and here to help anyway we know how. If we had more say in the overall process, we would make sure that the right thing gets done every chance we got. Until then, I guess I will try to save the system one person at a time.
Have a safe holiday............Doc.
