This document is a compilation of three decades of “thought secretions” on medicine as a science and an art form. Healing is not axiomatic, yet you would never know that if you opened a new text book or current journal. Medicine today is all about evidence-based findings. Evidence-based medicine is a great idea if you the underlying dogma is correct and based upon fact that we know to be undeniably true. I think you will find that I do not accept many of the foundations that evidence based medicine now currently rests upon. For me, biochemistry or physiology are absolute knowns about how humans work. Practice standards and evidence-based medicine are based upon prevailing opinion.
For example, evidence-based medicine believes that everyone with a total cholesterol over 200 should be treated with a statin medication. After many years of studying this, I realize that we may need to question that kind of advice. Practice standards in the United States are based upon what a large group of physicians believe are good practices based upon the current science. But the science that is published and in the media today is not based upon truths like biochemistry or physiology. Sadly, evidence-based medicine founded on data paid for by a corporation or branch of government that is subject to the influence of many biases.
Several years ago I read an article that changed my thoughts on this. It was called “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science” in the Atlantic. Shortly after, I read “Good Calories and Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes, and this confirmed much of what my intuition was telling me. What I saw, and was doing as a surgeon, often felt incongruent to what the reality was for the patient. Many good doctors practice medicine today. I honestly believe that they think they are doing good work. I know this, because I was one of them. I honestly believed everything I was taught was based upon solid scientific facts. I allowed my medical and dental educators the intellectual leeway of trusting the facts they told me were true. Good intentions, however, are not congruent with longevity, or with health for that matter. Good doctors were a dime a dozen, I found out…
However, great doctors were few and far between. I no longer wanted to be good; I wanted to be great. To be great you have to reject being just good. Good is not optimal. That was my initial thought after reading the Atlantic article. Yet the current system rewards only good doctors. This document will help you, the reader, differentiate between the great healers and the good ones. Your life actually depends upon it, so I strongly suggest you begin to think as you read.
