Navigating Medicine | Pt. 3

In Part 3, I discuss the next 5 tenets of navigating healthcare.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The Goal

For those who missed Part 1 - the purpose of this series is to put together a ‘basics’ of navigating the healthcare industry.

Navigating Medicine | Pt. 1

As many are aware, most of the industry has devolved into a money-making scheme wherein the patient’s interest are considered insofar as they may be used to generate capital and avoid legal complications.

Common questions:

• How do I find a good doctor?

• How would I even know a good doctor when I see one?

• How do I go about making [X] decision?

• Is this test or treatment worth it?

With this series, my goal is to arm the reader against the shortcomings and machinations of healthcare.

Few things are as demoralizing as hearing a story from someone who has been hurt by their healthcare encounters, rather than helped - and then left to fend for themselves.

Worse, some of these involve pursuing unnecessary and unjustified options that are, in some cases, pushed on them.

These kinds of stories are failures of both healthcare and doctors.

The Next 5 Tenets

The first 5 tenets were concerned with more administrative recommendations but, these next 5 actually concern your health.

6. Set your own health goals

7. Most ‘chronic’ disease is reversible

8. Prescriptions are not for life

9. The Terrain is everything

10. Look at your own imaging results

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6. Set your own health goals

It is very easy to get caught up in the official recommendations and guidelines. Throughout my career, I have seen young doctors attempt to place the ‘goals’ of management guidelines or recommendations of consultants at a higher priority than the patient’s own personal health goals. This will inevitably stress the relationship. As it should.

For some doctors, this is a question of what is ‘healthy.’ In my opinion, the patient sets their own health goals.

For example, blood pressure management guidelines suggest that people should aim to reduce their blood pressure down to “normal,” irrespective of the number of different drugs they need to take to achieve it.

In fact, new blood pressure guidelines encourage a multi-drug approach.

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