The Hazards Of Hospitalization
Hospitals are a hotbed of iatrogenic disease. Every year two million people are admitted to hospitals with one health problem and end up with another health problem!
(Definition: iatrogenic disease - Any adverse reaction, either major or minor, to a Medical or Surgical Treatment.)
According to Dr. Mendelsohn these doctor-caused illnesses kill as many as 20,000 people annually.
A study in the Southern Medical Journal reported that one in five patients admitted to a university hospital acquires an iatrogenic disease, and one in thirty of these lead to death. Of these iatrogenic deaths, half are complications of drug therapy and 10% result from improper diagnostic procedures.
Another study of 815 consecutive patients in a university hospital over an eight month period found that 36% had a disease caused by their doctor - in 2% of the cases the iatrogenic disease was believed to be a cause of the patient's death.
If you project that figure out, assuming 2% of all hospital patients die from an iatrogenic disease, you get 700,000 hospital/doctor-caused deaths per year - one third of all deaths!
Protecting Yourself From Doctors
"Doctors in general should be treated with about the same degree of trust as used car salesmen."
- Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.
1. Don't assume your doctor knows everything, or that he or she necessarily knows what's best for you. Use your doctor like your lawyer or CPA - someone to give you counsel with you making the final decision.
2. Don't panic with sickness - Sickness is an opportunity to learn about your body's needs.
3. Avoid treating Symptoms - There would be little iatrogenic disease if people were not so intent on treating symptoms. Instead you must get down to root causes, which usually means lifestyle change.
4. Don't "Quick Fix" pain - Get over the idea that pain is something that has to be immediately eliminated at any cost. That view encourages a lot of symptom treatment and resulting drug iatrogenesis. Pain is a warning that something's wrong. Again, seek to fix the underlying cause and that will fix the pain.
5. Seek appropriate Health Care Services - The old saying says: Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. Don't expect anything but a prescription drug for symptoms when you go to a medical doctor. If you want to deal with underlying causes, go to the appropriate natural medicine doctor. Of course, if you have an emergency situation or some type of acute problem, conventional medicine is best equipped to deal with that.
6. Stimulate Natural Healing, don't sabotage it - Symptom treatments, like the frequent use of antibiotics, destroy your natural immunity, and thus open the door for more iatrogenic problems.
Focus on detoxifying, correcting nutrient deficiencies, allergic desensitizing, and exercise to free up your body to heal itself.
