A few truisms and platitudes never hurt anybody, UNLESS POSTED IN A
NEWSGROUP WHERE THEY DON'T BELONG!
FOR GOD'S SAKE, ARE WE NEVER GOING TO SEE A neuroscience POSTING
AGAIN?? (n.b.: NEUROscience, not neurotic"science")
In <1998072221352800.RAA02737 at ladder01.news.aol.com> ateasd5941 at aol.com
(ATeasd5941) writes:
>>For Doctors and Patients a little wisdom from a friend of mine.
>>Carol T
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Not to be critical per se,
>but find a doctor who is willing to THINK and
>not just practice medicine on auto-pilot (or cruise-control)!
>>Auto-pilot is great for getting you through routine tasks
>that truly do not require thinking -- but it is a recipe for
>disaster when thought is needed. Unfortunately the
>professional who auto-pilots when he shouldn't
>(be he doctor, lawyer, or whatever) rarely suffers the
>disaster's effects personally.
>>And unfortunately there are some doctors out there who just
>want to putter along on auto-pilot. And there are people who
>put their health, unquestioningly, into these people's hands.
>And that is not good for either participant.
>>The other side of this is the patient's responsibility not to
>auto-pilot. Not to just sit back and let the doctor "do his
>doctoring stuff, 'cause he's the expert". To actively monitor
>one's health and report things that don't fit. To check the
>doctor's diagnosis against one's own intimate knowledge of
>self (you do allow yourself to be aware of your body, yes?
>not avoiding it as somehow sinful? or unrefined? ) and to
>question when they don't seem to fit.
>>All these fancy tests that technology has devised are in many
>ways wonderful, and they allow us to determine things we
>couldn't find out any other way. But they complement, not
>replace, our somasthetic perceptions - whether as ill-defined as
>"feeling good"/"feeling bad" or as specific as "I have a sharp
>pain right HERE". A doctor who relies only on one of these
>two sources of information is not doing his job properly.
>>A patient who denies the doctor access to the one source
>that only the patient can supply, is truly not doing HIS job.
>>SO get to know your body, after all you are only going to
>live in it for the rest of your life (no chances to "trade up"
>like with your house, or "trade in" as with your car). And
>when it starts going Phfft instead of Purrr under the hood,
>(or bonnet) well, get to the doctor right away, before the
>black smoke comes pouring out from in under the hood
>(bonnet). If you ignore the warning signals and your car
>dies on the road, well, time to buy a new car. But, if you
>ignore the warning signals of your body . . .
>--
>Kevin G. Rhoads, Ph.D.
>T_Rhoads at NO_SPAM.Classic.MSN.COM>KRhoads at NO_SPAM.CmpNetMail.com