PRESCRIPTION MEDS AND TESTS: More and More, “Patient Refuses”
Other than pausing with a wince when the sounds of chomping on lunch, burping, coughing, blowing noses, or slamming file drawers during dictation amplifies through my headphones, I greatly enjoy my career as a medical transcriber. It is a valuable source of education and information and gives one a sense of being involved with the community, and I love that. But far beyond the expansion of latin vocabulary and intricacies of surgical reports, any medical transcriber who has been at it long enough learns that many patients are caught in a ever-revolving medical door and can tell you that a pattern emerges in allopathic medicine that can sometimes send a chill up the spine. I do not think even the best-intentioned medical provider really sees this cycle of manipulation unless that provider is fortunate enough to have had access and the willingness to pursue information from outside the narrow establishment focus of allopathic medical training.
One thing we have seen time and again is a patient coming to see their provider with a relatively minor complaint such as stomach upset. Provider prescribes a medication. Patient returns in two weeks complaining of side effects. Provider puts patient on a second medication to counteract the first (since appropriate testing for a source is usually not even covered by their own insurance, providers are usually forced to hoist one bandaid on top of another…oh well). Patient returns in a month and has developed a skin rash and is taken off both medications and put on a stronger medicine in hopes this will do it. In some cases, I have typed notes for such patients who eventually ended up in the emergency room with a severe medical problem. Something crucial is missing in this scenario. So many prescription bandaids do not allow the “wound” to breathe and heal and may even cover up the very source of the problem. Providers have to spend way too much time on dictating subjective symptoms and are given far too little time to interact with patients. From my perspective, if a person feels inclined to see a physician with a comparative mild complaint, the first thing should be to set aside time with that patient to understand their unique human-ness; dictating that the patient does/does not smoke, drink, or use illegal drugs should not be the extent of getting to the heart of the matter. I know that most providers would like to get back to a strict doctor-patient interaction and medical treatment without the intervention that huge HMOs/insurance carriers and pharmaceuticals enforce on them. Fortunately, I see more doctors at least locally pursuing that course (yay!).
I have trained in Reiki (energy healing) therapy and can say truly that in many cases involving minor dis-sease, the only medicine needed is a compassionate touch, listening ear, and allowing the tears. We are living in an era where families often live states and even countries apart. The close support of nuclear families and extended families has been supplanted by a sense of feeling depersonalized in society. We hardly know our neighbors anymore and the peer pressure our children come under is guided more by the mass media than by true social interaction and bonding.
There is another phenomenon that is occurring over setting the “normal limits” of our fluid levels such as cholesterol. What is going on here? I have seen the guidelines for “normal limits” change three times in as many years for cholesterol parameters. Even from lab to lab, this can vary. This means that the “normal” cholesterol levels you had in 2005 are considered “abnormally high” in 2008. Who benefits with continually fiddling with these parameters? Guess.
The medical needs of each of us is a personal choice, and allopathic medicine definitely has its heroes, but choices should be informed choices, so I continue to encourage taking control and researching the facts from all perspectives. Go to your medical provider armed with information.
Intended or not (intention indeed is behind the pharmaceutical and AMA mindset on this), there is a propencity to use the general population as guinea pigs for drugs, among other things, and the ones most victimized are those least able to take control of their lives; the elderly, the children, the “less fortunate”, and those who have been conditioned to think of medical providers as gods. I do believe my own blood pressure must rise every time I hear a radio ad presenting a compassionate-sounding announcer encouraging needy volunteers to participate in yet another (guinea pig) study involving a new drug, which offers no protection for recourse in the event the study ends up harming rather than helping your health, although it definitely fills the coffers of the pharmaceutical industry.
That said, I have seen allopathic medicine used in more enlightened endeavors, for instance in the cases of the dying, and there are a special few drugs that really hold the promise of cure. I am not against allopathic drugs when a very serious condition is involved. On the whole, however, the first line of defense is keeping the immune system up and running (thymus gland is very important for this!) with natural herbs. If natural herbs did not work for us, why do you think the pharmaceutical companies are trying to pass legislation that would remove OTC herbal remedies, even vitamins, from public consumption? Because they know it works and it threatens their money machine.
I mentioned above that we should approach our medical advisors armed with information, and I am lately seeing that reflected in the transcriptions. Patients are bringing in their on-line news and information for discussion BEFORE they agree to anything. A line I am hearing dictated more and more this past year, whether it is a recommended medication, surgical procedure, or some preventative-maintenance plea is……
“Patient refuses…..”
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Reaching out: These Doctors Still Make Housecalls: “ ‘We practice medicine rather than having to worry about fee structures and rules,’ he explained. ‘We spend the time we need to with patients. We do not feel constrained. ‘ ”
Overdosed America (Dr. John Abramson) ”The lack of transparency that has become normal in commercially sponsored medical research now taints the scientific evidence published in even our most prestigious medical journals. And unlike the recent scandals in other industries that robbed Americans of money and jobs, this one is undermining our health.”
Clinical Drug Trials: FDA Fails to Monitor Safety and Integrity “ ‘In many ways, rats and mice get greater protection as research subjects in the United States than do humans,’ said Arthur L. Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania.”
When Drug Trials Go Wrong: “The true nature of the potential risks of harm from experimental treatments remain mostly concealed today–just as they had been concealed in 2000, when 18 -year old Jesse Gelsinger had unwittingly signed, what turned out to be his death certificate, by volunteering for a fatally flawed gene therapy (adenovirus) experiment.”
The Downward Spiral of Healthcare: “Under the current healthcare system, the insurance companies can regulate and distribute funds however they see fit, while physicians can do nothing but hope the situation improves.”
Consciousness Communicates Continuously (prior post): “The media , pharmaecutical industry, perhaps a physician incessantly conveys messages to convince us we will be ill at some point, if we aren’t already. TV ads run day and night telling us it is flu season or allergy season, or that we will surely begin to have disease by a certain age—that we need yearly preventative tests to catch some illusive, terrible disease. (T)his is potentially crippling and even the suggestion can cause a downward flux in the immune system…”.










Worldy issues from an otherwordly perspective
