today i was lead to understand that in order to maintain ‘hospital privileges’, doctors must fulfill a certain quota and submit a minimum number of their patients on a regular basis. i have also heard of surgeons being required to book a certain amount of operations in order to keep their job just budget analysis. although these steps make sense for any business with a budget to meet, what does it mean to us – the patients? it means that our doctors are constantly facing challenging moral dilemmas between what is right for their patient vs what is right for their career – because the system pits those two values against each other. does it have to be like that?
one time when bush was still president, i remember hearing a blurb from a ’state of the union’ address. he was addressing the economy and had to report that it was generally down across all industries. “except”, he said cheerfully, to brighten to mood, “for the the health care industry”, which was on the rise! … i didn’t think that was particularly good news. it just underscored for me how much more it benefits big medical business to keep us sick than it does to cure us. they don’t want us dead, because what good are we to them then? but the best scenario is if we have some kind of chronic condition, or one of the big slow-death, big-ticket diseases like cancer.
i am very concerned about my daughters’ generation. when i go to the playgrounds, the kids don’t look good. the percentage that are overweight or obese is ridiculous. and i hate to think of how many of them are on behavior medications… i watched a documentary recently about children on behavioral medication. in every case, the seemingly innocent first medication, administered to deal with a hyperactive or moody child, led to complications, side effects, and dependency on not one but 5 to 10 serious medications within a few years. and in every case, in the background in the homes of these children there were televisions on. all of the parents were obese and in every home, people were eating processed foods and/or drinking sodas. i’m just sayin’…
this topic really gets me worked up. children under the age of three do not need to watch ANY television (even DVD watching impairs and distorts normal brain development) or consume ANY sugar or refined foods (which are both addictive and are necessary, i believe, to the development of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer). why expose small children to these damaging habits? at that age if they are not exposed to them, they won’t even know they exist! of course once they enter the social realm they will eventually want to partake in the american self-destruction-through-consumerism party, and conscientious parents will have to decide where they want to be on the hard-assed to lenient, to permissive, to enabling spectrum. but damn, at least give the little guys a fighting chance! if they’re already cracked-out on disney and cocoa puffs by the time they’re two…? it’s sad that we’ve gotten ourselves into such a sorry state, but it’s devastating to see our children served up as lifelong consumers of manufactured non-food poisons, and fodder for the booming health care industry.
rant over. off to bed.
