Medical schools provide a hectic tour through a variety of disciplines that contribute to the medical view of the word. Medical students are challenged to learn too much too quickly and have little time to reflect. Medical education has a friendly surface, that invites you to study anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology and pathology, all noble disciplines that reveal life processes in health and disease. There is also a somewhat hidden curriculum that transforms smart and free individuals into obedient servants of the medical system. 

See MDs Indentured Servants and Students, Physicians and Stress

System in Trouble

The medical system includes many wealthy and powerful players who have little or no tolerance for smart and idealist students who want to innovate and change the way the system works. Conformity is the highest value in medicine and some beginning students have trouble adjusting. Wealth means vested interest which translates into a desire to control medical school curricula, post-grad medical education and government policies.

In addition, the system is in trouble; so much so that commentators such as Glickman-Simon offer a gloomy prognosis. At the American College of Physicians 2006 Annual Session, he stated: "According to the American College of Physicians, the healthcare system in this country is threatened with an ominous future. Without prompt and significant changes in the way that healthcare is organized, financed, and taught in this country, the "collapse" of primary care is imminent. What will remain in its place is an increasingly fragmented jumble of poorly coordinated subspecialized services, even higher costs for even lower quality of care, reduced access, rising inefficiency, and more patient dissatisfaction."

One wealthy, powerful player in the system is the drug industry. Every year they sell more drugs, become more wealthy and increase their influence on every aspect of medicine. Drug companies control all the free publications that medical students and practicing MDs read. Drug companies own post graduate education. I  was encouraged by the American Medical Student Association's stance on drug companies gifts to students and physicians. They argued that to accept gifts is to feel indebted, and doctors indebted to drug firms may not be prescribing medicines based solely on what's best for their patients. In the US, $22 billion was spent on physician public relations (2003 data); $16 billion was spent on free samples given to MDs. Students who oppose drug company influence do not conform to the status quo and will pay a personal price; they may find that they are excluded from preferred hospital positions. As  residents, they will work with staff and peers who enjoy drug-industry gifts, academic appointments and research contracts. Indeed, without drug company support, physicians' career choices are limited.
See  Drug Bias also See Brain Drug Warnings

Nutrition: We recognize three basic truths

First: Most of the diseases that lead to premature disability and death are caused by eating too much of the wrong food and exercising too little.

The second truth is that normal is not normal:  The foods implicated in causing illnesses are common foods that almost everyone eats.  To become a healthy person you have to redefine normal food.

The third truth is that each person is responsible for their own health. Rather than waiting for the next “miracle cure” for high blood pressure or diabetes 2, for example, responsible people get busy and fix the problem for themselves.

Re-Thinking the Nutrition Paradigm

This website attempts to provide a perspective and an overview, with an emphasis on removing the causes of disease rather than treating the effects. We emphasize basic biology and recognize that human health depends on the proper supply of food, air and water. The improvement in the diversity and availability of foods has been a mixed blessing with major problems emerging to negate the potential benefits. Food is the most intimate part of the environment because we ingest it. We look not only at the composition of the food but also, and more importantly, at the interaction of the ingested molecules with body. Adverse reactions to food are common and produce many disturbances by a variety of mechanisms. 

Air is the second most intimate part of the environment, because we inhale it. When something goes wrong, it makes good sense to look at the flow of substances through the nose and mouth for the source of the problem.
See Air.

Learn more about self-regulation

Medical Care and Planet Ecology is produced by Alpha Education.
These brief essays by Dr. Stephen Gislason are taken from his books and blogs. 
A Free Copy of the book Self Care for the 21st Century is available as a PDF file for download. 
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