Medical Care and Planet Ecology 
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Medical Care Perspectives
No Health = Expensive Medical Care
Drug Bias in Medicine
Brain Drug Warnings
Deep Ecology and Health
No Environment in Medicine
World Health
Brain Drug Warnings
Public Health vs Doctors Office
Medical Care US and Canada
Illness as Chaos
Medical Methods
A Body Divided
How Doctors Think
Physicians and Stress
Medical Students
Process Not Categories
Self Responsibility
MDs Indentured Servants
Reflections on an Illness
Symptoms
Air and Breathing
Environment
Genes and Medicine
Medical/Drug Studies & Confusion

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A Body Divided

A fundamental problem in human cognition is the limited ability of each person to understand an ever increasing body of knowledge. There is an increasing need to develop specialized knowledge and skills that fit with a local group's requirements. In medicine and surgery, specialists are experts in very specific aspects of body function. Hospitals are organized around "systems" such as the circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous systems. Subspecialties deal with components of each system.

But, each person is a whole system of interacting parts. A whole person entering a medical institution when something goes wrong will discover that they are not a whole any longer. They may discover that even a team of specialists examining their various parts will not understand the whole experience they are having.

For example, atherosclerotic arterial disease is a whole body disease, but tends to be managed by physicians and surgeons as a localized disease. In other words, when the heart arteries are plugged you go to see a cardiologist and then a heart surgeon. When the vessels to the brain are involved, you go to a neurologist and then possibly a neurosurgeon. When the vessels to your leg are obstructed, you go to a peripheral vascular surgeon. When the vessels to your penis are plugged, you go to a urologist and a marital counselor.

Even single organs such as the heart are divided into parts, procedures and pathologies, each with its own specialists. In the good old days you had internists who understood something about how the internal organs interacted. But rather than praising and preserving generalists who still had whole patients in view, generalists were forced into subspecialist or pushed out of the big hospitals.

Veith suggested that a single specialty devoted to noncardiac vascular disease should be developed. He praised a Swedish team who created such an integrated vascular service. According to Veith: “Instead of many specialties competing for the rewards of treating noncardiac vascular lesions, vascular disease would be managed by those with appropriate judgment, skills, and -- most importantly -- commitment to the field. Specialists with skills derived from many different disciplines would work together within a single department or service without allegiance or obligations to a large department of medicine, surgery, or radiology -- as is currently the case in most institutions and most countries.“
 

Medical Care and Planet Ecology is produced by Alpha Education. These brief essays by Dr. Stephen Gislason are taken from his books and blogs.  Persona Digital publishes a series of books  that present important topics in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy.  A Free Copy of the book Self Care for the 21st Century is available as a PDF file for download.  Click to download the PDF file ( it will open in the Abobe Reader... be sure to save before you close the file) 

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Printed book orders  are submitted to Alpha Online; physical shipments  are limited to destinations in Canada and the USA. eBooks and other digital documents are downloaded from Persona Digital and can be delivered to any destination on the planet. Persona Digital Online participates in the production and distribution of  Alpha Education Books.  The entire series is available for download. Persona Digital also distributes Alpha Nutrition Formula information, tutorials, and user guides as PDF files for download. Persona Digital Music Studio is a source of music recordings, music discussions and recording studio  services.

Alpha Nutrition ® is a registered trademark and a division of  Environmed Research Inc., Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. In business since 1984. Online since 1995.

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