Posted by
Roxanna M. on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 10:12:47 AM
A friend of mine passed away last week. She died from the cancer her doctor told her she didn't have. She bought into the myth that regular trips to the doctor will keep you healthy.
Like a good little girl, she went for her yearly mammogram. And every year, the doctor told her she was fine when, in fact, the cancer was growing. When the doctor finally "saw" it, he assured her that it was small. She was relieved and thrilled. Such feelings were short-lived however when further tests showed that the "small" cancer in her breast was now in her lungs, requiring surgery and chemotherapy. And now, she's dead.
We have the greatest health care system in the world, or so we're told. So, why didn't the doctor see the cancer before it had metastasized? Isn't that the purpose of a yearly mammogram? What's the purpose of going if doctors don't know what they're looking at or looking for? My husband represented the widower of a woman whose doctor didn't see her breast cancer until it was stage IV metastatic. The irony was that the doctor died before the woman did.
A recent episode of "Grey's Anatomy" showed the Izzie character running $120,000 worth of unnecessary tests because she wanted to "find" something and win some contest. Don't laugh. Doctors run unnecessary tests all the time because they make money doing so. Of course, their high-minded excuse is that they need to do so to (1) prevent malpractice claims and (2) keep you healthy. Don't you believe it. Infections are the easiest thing to prevent, yet the easiest thing to get. Why prevent an infection when you can make more money for treating one? Why find cancer when it's small when you can make more money for treating it when it's bigger?
No one tells us that doctors are the third leading cause of death in America, behind cancer and heart disease. Doctors will kill more people in one month than the Iraq war has killed in 5 years, and we're vilified if we want to sue one who has caused us harm.
There's no money in good health, and doctors have no interest whatsoever in keeping you that way. Their only interest is in keeping you coming to see them. They prey on our fear of death, and their greed and fraud is a major contributing factor to the high price of health care. Ironic, isn't it, that as the cost goes up, the quality goes down.