The Focus Of Western Medicine Is On Treatment Rather Than Prevention
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
Thomas Edison
Although there have been many medical advances since Edison’s time, the doctor is unfortunately still “giving medicine”.
The traditional approach in Western medicine has always been to diagnose a particular disease or condition from known symptoms and then to treat it with medication, surgery or various procedures.
This focus on diagnosis and treatment worked well for infectious diseases, but is not very useful for multi-factorial chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease.
At the population level, the emphasis has shifted in favour of understanding the underlying causes of disease, and prevention through improvements to lifestyle.
However this has not really been translated to the individual patient-doctor consultation.
It is not just the doctor’s fault – patient expectations also contribute to this situation. Patients sometimes complain they have not got value for money if they don’t leave clutching a prescription, but just discuss factors like diet, exercise and sleep with their doctor.
Or if the doctor does recommend various lifestyle changes, patients frequently ignore this advice and keep looking for “the magic bullet”.
And when the patient is in pain, many doctors feel helpless if they can’t provide some form of pain relief.
This is an excerpt from Stop Headaches Naturally Chapter 6.8 - The focus of Western medicine is on treatment rather than prevention
