Tragedy of medicine as a career option.
Medicine as a Career Option.
- Medical students needlessly study a thoroughly outdated system of medicine. [absolutely true, and studying a false paradigm as well]
- They have to study a vast amount of mostly useless literature as latest medical findings in diverse streams take decades to reach medical textbooks; 17 years on an average. The most crucial information never reaches as it contradicts the goal of the pharmaceutical industry. [I do little of what I was trained to do. I saw its uselessness from day one]
- The student enters with the dream that he can cure patients and lead them towards health. But his education is entirely about disease management and not about health. [We are not taught what supports the body as all such molecules, foods, or lifestyles, are not patentable for profit, yet are indispensable for health.]
- The course helps him identify disease names and probable management options according to pharma paid authors as these management options need to conform to the products and devices the pharmaceutical industry sells and profits from.
- The student will not learn anything about health and important essential aspects like food, nutrition, rest and exercise. He will be taught that these are quackery. [At UCSF, a professor lectured that diet has NOTHING to do with development of cancer – 1973]
- The students of Government medical colleges and even many mushrooming private colleges have to stay in ill managed unlivable hostels that are mostly crumbling structures with food that will make one puke just by their smell and looks
- Even if the student passes out as an MBBS graduate he will feel worthless as under the present system an MBBS degree is not worth the paper it is printed upon. [I almost quit medical school at the end of the third year, depressed that all I was learning to do was be a pimp for Pharma]
- Unless his father is a tycoon the student will have to undertake huge loans and go through the entire rigmarole again for his MD degree which will teach him more about disease but even less about health and how to achieve it.
- As a resident intern the poor student will have to undergo the worst form of slavery and discrimination. He will be lucky if he can escape violence that has become a standard occupational hazard for doctors today. [Thankfully, violence was much less in my training days]
- Having to experience his own brand of medicine will ensure he will be profoundly sick both at mental and physical levels by the time he begins his career. [As I said, I had my depression in medical school upon realizing we were not healing anyone, but ripping most people off]
- If he is employed in a corporate hospital he will have to work under management graduates who will dictate what he prescribes and recommends such that targets can be achieved and the hospital can ensure profits. [This is why we don’t even take insurance]
- If he sets up his own clinic he will have to take more loans and deal with an increasingly hostile system and face patients alone and without protection.
- As he gains in experience he will realize the futility of his education and treatment and will be frustrated and exhausted with the unmanageable rapidly growing number of diseased persons he will find it impossible to handle. He will also be gripped by the mafia network of targets, commissions, incentives and kick backs. This frustration and exhaustion is a condition now recently recognized and branded by the WHO as a "burn out" [I am still keeping going, beyond retirement age, solely because we love the work. We love actually helping people to heal.]
- He will be expected to market products in workshops and conferences that he will intrinsically know to be poorly studied and tested, and extremely risky and unhealthy. But he will have to do it for money and "reputation". [Fortunately, I get to teach ozone therapy, not risky at all, and perhaps the greatest healer the world has ever known.]
- He will have to depend on Dr Google for his continuing education as the industry sponsored medical workshops and conferences he will attend are solely about sales pitch and marketing of new products.
- But he will have to dread Dr Google as his patients also depend on it for information that he wishes his patients do not know and understand.
My colleague has fortunately understood what I am trying to say. But his son will have a go at it once again next year as he dreams about becoming a "good" doctor, curing people, and ensuring health.
That is the tragedy.
By Jagannath
Chatterjee & Dr Robert J Rowen
Dr Rowen found this post of mine and has very kindly improved
upon it by adding his valuable comments that are added in brackets. His
Facebook page is;
This post of mine is for those parents who want their
children to enter the mainstream medical profession. The need arose because a
colleague is distressed that his son did not qualify in the entrance test. I
said his son was lucky, and he asked why. This is what I answered;
- Medical students needlessly study a thoroughly outdated system of medicine. [absolutely true, and studying a false paradigm as well]
- They have to study a vast amount of mostly useless literature as latest medical findings in diverse streams take decades to reach medical textbooks; 17 years on an average. The most crucial information never reaches as it contradicts the goal of the pharmaceutical industry. [I do little of what I was trained to do. I saw its uselessness from day one]
- The student enters with the dream that he can cure patients and lead them towards health. But his education is entirely about disease management and not about health. [We are not taught what supports the body as all such molecules, foods, or lifestyles, are not patentable for profit, yet are indispensable for health.]
- The course helps him identify disease names and probable management options according to pharma paid authors as these management options need to conform to the products and devices the pharmaceutical industry sells and profits from.
- The student will not learn anything about health and important essential aspects like food, nutrition, rest and exercise. He will be taught that these are quackery. [At UCSF, a professor lectured that diet has NOTHING to do with development of cancer – 1973]
- The students of Government medical colleges and even many mushrooming private colleges have to stay in ill managed unlivable hostels that are mostly crumbling structures with food that will make one puke just by their smell and looks
- Even if the student passes out as an MBBS graduate he will feel worthless as under the present system an MBBS degree is not worth the paper it is printed upon. [I almost quit medical school at the end of the third year, depressed that all I was learning to do was be a pimp for Pharma]
- Unless his father is a tycoon the student will have to undertake huge loans and go through the entire rigmarole again for his MD degree which will teach him more about disease but even less about health and how to achieve it.
- As a resident intern the poor student will have to undergo the worst form of slavery and discrimination. He will be lucky if he can escape violence that has become a standard occupational hazard for doctors today. [Thankfully, violence was much less in my training days]
- Having to experience his own brand of medicine will ensure he will be profoundly sick both at mental and physical levels by the time he begins his career. [As I said, I had my depression in medical school upon realizing we were not healing anyone, but ripping most people off]
- If he is employed in a corporate hospital he will have to work under management graduates who will dictate what he prescribes and recommends such that targets can be achieved and the hospital can ensure profits. [This is why we don’t even take insurance]
- If he sets up his own clinic he will have to take more loans and deal with an increasingly hostile system and face patients alone and without protection.
- As he gains in experience he will realize the futility of his education and treatment and will be frustrated and exhausted with the unmanageable rapidly growing number of diseased persons he will find it impossible to handle. He will also be gripped by the mafia network of targets, commissions, incentives and kick backs. This frustration and exhaustion is a condition now recently recognized and branded by the WHO as a "burn out" [I am still keeping going, beyond retirement age, solely because we love the work. We love actually helping people to heal.]
- He will be expected to market products in workshops and conferences that he will intrinsically know to be poorly studied and tested, and extremely risky and unhealthy. But he will have to do it for money and "reputation". [Fortunately, I get to teach ozone therapy, not risky at all, and perhaps the greatest healer the world has ever known.]
- He will have to depend on Dr Google for his continuing education as the industry sponsored medical workshops and conferences he will attend are solely about sales pitch and marketing of new products.
- But he will have to dread Dr Google as his patients also depend on it for information that he wishes his patients do not know and understand.
My colleague has fortunately understood what I am trying to say. But his son will have a go at it once again next year as he dreams about becoming a "good" doctor, curing people, and ensuring health.
That is the tragedy.
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