How can the suffering of doctors end?

A Facebook friend of mine Dr Harinder Singh Bedi has written a very moving piece in a doctors platform about the conditions of doctors today, the threat of violence they face, the abysmal working conditions, lack of care for their own selves, their pain when patients die despite their efforts, their lack of social life, and their consequent physical and mental deterioration. I too have often written on this subject and tried to help young doctors, nurses and caregivers who have written to me seeking help for their worsening health.

All of this is happening because of the faulty path that medicine has chosen since the 18th century. Today it has lost all touch with reality and also has lost the vital connection that ought to exist between the physician and the patient. Things are going to get much worse with AI and robotics entering the scene. Technology cannot make up for the lack of science.

Dr Bedi does not dwell upon this subject. Unless this vital issue is taken up in earnest things are not going to improve. Pathology is about how the body functions but one needs to go much beyond to the forces and dynamics that exist within the body and the role of mind emotions, environment and spirit that constitute health. Man is a social animal and the family and society also determine health and well being. You may know every cell within the body but yet you will be far from health which is about the finer aspects that govern and the gross is only a reflection of the forces at play.

Please remember;
- Health is more about finer, subtle elements, rather than gross pathological findings
- Acute illnesses are often the body's way to get rid of toxicity and recover from chronic conditions. 
- Disease is not something to be attacked a fought, but to be understood in its entirety with respect to the individual and his environment - the reason why general physicians devoted so much time to each patient
- Health outcomes must be long term and not short term relief without investigating long term impacts of interventions
- Immunology today does not consider "immunity" as protection from disease but as an interaction of the system with the environment for mutual benefit. A sea change has taken place with diverse views being presented including whether we can consider an "immune system" that can be seen apart from the overall functioning of the body and mind. Holism is steadily and surely invading medicine and challenging its reductionist views
- Mind, emotions, body, and environment are one unit and dominated by bacteria, viruses and even parasites
- Spirituality is an essential component of the inner life and is indispensable for health and happiness
- The body is not permanent, neither the mind. It is the consciousness within (and without) that is permanent and guides the entire visual world
- Emerging subjects of interest are the study of the microbiome, mycobiome, epigenetics, circadian rhythms, and applying the theory of chaos in health - viewing fluctuating parameters as physical and mental responses and adjustments with the environment thus proposing a dynamic rather than a set view of health
- The physician’s role is various, mainly supervisory instead of being interventionist, and not limited to managing illnesses. As Dr Danielle Ofri, MD famously remarked, "Often doing nothing is the best medicine." But this simple quote requires a deep understanding of the role diseases play in life and also the body's own way of dealing with crises. ( https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/when-doing-nothing-is-the-best-medicine/ )

The physician can be satisfied only if his methods, or thinking and intuitive process can keep the healthy at their peak of health, lead the unhealthy towards health, and cure people who have fallen sick. Disease management can never achieve this and will lead to growing frustration and job dissatisfaction.

Yet another doctor who slandered holistic medicine and got slammed is now talking about why ayurveda needs to study modern allopathic principles if it criticizes allopathy. Dear sir, who introduced those subjects? Not the ayurveds or homeopaths or the Unani doctors. It was your fraternity that used its clout to meddle with the syllabus such that students would never have a clear idea about the intricacies of these holistic systems and lose touch with their classical texts. As a result today the students have to study their modalities and understand them AFTER completing their degrees.

That doctor has at least admitted that holistic sciences are complete in themselves. That is because they are based upon sincere observation, examination and clinical experience. These sciences depend upon the experiences of the practitioners and their subjects and have delved deep into the subtle factors that govern health. They know how the body heals itself and they have knowledge about energy and energy vortices, the factors (air, water, earth, fire, phlegm, bile, and space) constituting the body that guides its processes and how the lymphatic and the extremely subtle all pervasive nervous system called nadi's keep the body healthy at several levels and also guides the healing process. These subtle elements are disregarded as superstition because they do not suit the needs of the extremely powerful chemical industry that invented the modern system and which can only depend on the unscientific and damaging chemical model to sell its wares and survive.

So what is the way forward? Let a dialogue start. Let the doctors start reading about the holistic system as many are already doing. It may not be easy as one has to change his mindset and alter ones way of thinking. It is time to shed inhibitions and be open to new ideas. The main challenges are today detoxification of body and environment, undoing the damage, restoring the ecosystem, and rebuilding the inner working of the body with lifestyle changes at both individual and community levels. Not easy definitely but it is only way that both the suffering doctors and the patients can get out of the vicious circle.