"Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head; and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it."
As You Like It
(Act II, scene i)
I am in debt to the many great physicians across Europe and North America who have instructed me through their practice, what it means to be a true consultant.
I have spent a lot of time in the health care system. MD’s all wear white coats, they all go through the same schooling and carry the same titles, but their practice exists along a spectrum, with prescribers on the one end and consultants on the other.
Whether it is the local GP, a specialist, a cardiologist, gynecologist, neurologist, psychologist, or (I am ashamed to admit) even oncologist’s, all medical doctors exist somewhere along this continuum between prescriber and consultant.
Patients also exist on a continuum between codependant and interdepandant.
Prescribers look at the disease first, then the patient. They attend to illness not health.
Prescribers diagnose the illness based on the best mix of solutions (pharmaceuticals) to ‘fix’ the patient. If the drugs don’t work they default to surgery or psychiatric therapy. A prescribers goal is to get through as many patients as they can in the shortest space of time.
The prescriber is the ‘wise one’ who has all the answers, his or her solutions must be obeyed. They talk at the patient, treat them like a child. They create a codependence that is the burden of any health care system.
Prescribers give patients more drugs than they need or often ever use.
Prescribers do not learn from their patients, they learn from the producers of drugs.
"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie"
Alls Well That End's Well
(Act I, scene i)
Consultants look at the patient first, then the disease.
Consultants diagnose the patients thinking, work/play habits, diet, sleep, exercise, family history, environment in order to get to the root of the patient’s health.
Consultants know that the body is the world’s finest pharmacy. They help the patient build their self awareness and discover the own strength that resides within.
Consultants work with the patient to help them to raise their self awareness and take accountability for their own health and well being, educate and empower them to alter their own habits and take control of their own environment.
You can spot the diference between the consultant and the prescriber simply by the amount of medication they use.
Consultants free the patient from their dependance on the doctor, they lift the burden off the health care system and put it back on the patient's back.
I owe everything to these doctors. They taught me the difference between being a true consultant vs. a con-slut-ant. Realilze the difference between iiving a life and living a lie.
“Who worse than a physician would this report become? But I consider by medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too”
Cymbeline
(Act V, scene iv)
Comments