We use many different buzzwords when it comes to our discussions on healthcare and medicine and depending on our level of education we use many of these terms interchangeably even though we should really differentiate between them.
Today I would like to share with you some of my thoughts on “healthcare” and “medicine“. In today’s day and age we consider ourselves to be the most modern, most sophisticated, civilization to ever walk this planet; whether or not that is true that could lead to hours of more discussion.
I feel it is necessary that we differentiate between ‘physical trauma to our body‘, or ‘short-term acute illness‘ and ‘long-term chronic disease‘.
Modern medicine is really nothing more than the use of advanced technology and chemistry. On the other hand, Traditional medicine has been around for thousands of years in all civilizations and cultures, and has persisted through the tests of time because it works.
While modern medicine certainly has its place, it is riddled with shortcomings. We are systematically training our doctors to engage in the pattern recognition and suppression of symptoms rather than actual treatment of causes. (“have pain? take this pill. pain subsides. repeat.”) Very little time is ever spent on determining the root, or underlying, cause for the pain and the reason for it. (what is the body really telling us?)
Modern medical science or technology is wonderful when it comes to dealing with physical trauma (i.e. damage) to the human body. A construction worker who falls on a staff of rebar and is impaled, obviously needs to have the rebar removed and the physical damage to his body surgically repaired. If I fall and break a bone, I go to the hospital, have my bone(s) set in a cast or splint, and my bone fuses back together. If I have a faulty or broken joint that is no longer functioning, through the modern use of orthopedics I can have a new joint put in. If you are nearsighted or farsighted, modern medical technology allows you to wear glasses or contacts in order to correct your vision, or you can even have laser-eye-surgery, so that you can live your daily life while seeing life around you in focus.
If you think of the human body is something like an automobile, and this automobile sustained damage then modern medicine functions much like a mechanic (or a body shop) who is able to repair the damage and send you on your way, without the need for knowing why or how the accident-damage occurred.
However modern medicine does a very poor job in treating acute illness or long-term chronic disease because:
- physicians have become dependent on writing prescriptions for chemically-engineered, usually patented compounds
- which have been developed by for-profit corporations to treat symptoms, and
- to keep patients in a perpetual state of dependence and in a perpetual state of remaining a patient.
- most pharmaceuticals prescribed do not actually address or treat the root cause underlying an illness or disease.
This is where traditional medicine is highly superior to modern medical technology because traditional medicine actually examines the causes which lead to the disease or illness.
Traditional medicine actually engages in the art of healing. It is the goal of traditional medicine to not only improve your immediate quality of life, but to actually help the body heal itself and eliminating the underlying cause or problem which is the root of the disease.
A state of disease (or “dis-ease”) merely means that the body is not at ease. Traditional medicine will use varying modalities during a determined course of treatment in order to bring about the best possible result. However, once a course of treatment has been completed and the disease or illness successfully treated or managed, there generally is no ongoing dependence or addiction.
