The next time you go to a doctor, think about what outcome you really want. Is it really the confirmation that something is “wrong” with your body that will give you the most satisfaction? Do you really want to be able to brag about how good your doctor is by yielding to her certainty that you must stop what you love doing, endure surgery or ingest debilitiating and expensive chemicals in order to avoid death, or something even worse? Are you unwittingly enchanted by the idea that, at your age, your physical infirmaties are all that you have left to talk about?
Wouldn’t you really rather have health or renewed health? Wouldn’t you rather find another, more compatible outlet for your desire to be the center of attention with your friends? If yes, then, give your doctor fair warning. Well before he clears his throat in preparation to pass some judgment or other, advise him that he is only allowed to discuss the specific benefits and health outcomes his prescriptions will produce. Neither invite nor tolerate the overt threat so common in medical parlance that predicts dire and painful outcomes for you if you don’t submit to his recommended course of action.
This approach is so familiar in our culture that you may never have thought to question its validity. Fear is a potent ally to anyone selling anything, and in medicine it is one on which many procedures and prescriptions rest for their successful sale. However, put that same sales pitch in another marketing venue and it’s easier to see the absurdity of it. Say you want to trade in your car and the salesman chooses to focus on the failings he imagines your current car has rather than on the benefits of the car he is selling. Say you want to take a trip to Barbados and the travel agent attempts to sell you tickets by telling you how lousy your hometown is. Although negative pitches are present in marketing campaigns for many products and we can be somewhat swayed by them, the absurdity and ignorance of such pitches is more obvious in these examples. Yet, to attempt to fill a buyer with doubt and fear rather than offering hope and certain satisfaction is a sign of a salesman who either doesn’t really know his product or, worse, doesn’t really believe in its capacity to fulfill the buyer’s need.
It is the height of hubris for anyone to claim to know with unquestioned certainy the “truth” about another person’s body and how it will live on into the future. Regardless of the expense or ”sophistication” of the diagnosing equipment used, what a doctor knows from an MRI, an x-ray and a bank of blood tests is a mere snapshot of who you and your body are. As anyone who has taken a photograph of anything knows, a moment later the light has changed and countless other facets in the scene have appeared or disappeared. Therefore, if the physician wishes to claim certain knowledge about anything, it must be the confident, and guaranteed, certainty about the curative abilities of the solutions she offers from her years of study, practice and training.
I find it an amazing wonder that the medical profession has cleverly excused itself from the legitimacy of guaranteeing its products. From food growers to computer outlets to automobile manufacturers,virtually all other merchants must guarantee to some extent what they offer us in order to be viable in today’s marketplace. We and our laws hold professionals accountable for the products they sell. The only other products I can think of that don’t come with guarantees are those of arms dealers and flea market merchants. However, the former have a vested interest in making their products reliable, while the latter charges us so little that we can afford to bring home some tschotske that doesn’t work as promised. Our bodies and the quality of our heath are different matters.
When a merchant won’t stand behind the quality of her products, it’s time to buy your goods from someone else. There exists today a growing number of trained medical professionals whose studies and practices encompass an ever wider array of viable solutions. It is much easier to find qualified advisors who will not prey upon your fears in order to profit from exorbitant insurance rates, but who will, instead, educate you about your body’s magnificent capacity to right itself, while helping you regain your health. And, remember, what Emerson wrote applies to our bodies as well as to our minds, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”