One day, driving along in my car and listening to a documentary on CBC, I came across a professor from the University of Toronto talking about”What’s wrong with physics”. The thing I remember best is him stating that, according to his analysis,neither Albert Einstein nor Niels Bohr, arguably the greatest physicists of the last couple of centuries ,would have been admitted to the U.of Toronto post-graduate program in physics at his University! Wow! That says a lot, doesn’t it.
So it got me reflecting on the parallel question in my field:”What’s Wrong with Medicine?” As I watch some videos of Alternative medicine and see people like Dietrich Klinghart and Dale Breseden and think about the now deceased William Rea from the American Environmental medicine field,I am struck by how intelligent and creative and curious these people are.I have the same sense when I read about historical figures in psychiatry like Emil Kraepelin and Eugen Bleuler and figures in medicine like Galen and more recently William Osler.
However,this is not what I see with the vast majority of modern doctors even those in research.. At first,this may seem counter-intuitive.Aren’t these the smartest and the brightest from all our educational systems? Aren’t the ones who get into medical school often the top of their class-“la crème de la créme”?There are several important caveats to consider here.
First is the selection process.The medical schools are mostly screening for high-performance students on standardized testing.Even when they look at extra-curricular activities-like charitable work or even sports-these criteria are usually easy to manipulate and the ambitious parents of these students are often very savvy in how to manipulate the system.Do some work at the local homeless shelter or get involved in your local environmental issues or become a regular leader at the Scouts or Guides and you’re good to go! And everyone knows that.When you add into the mix,interviewers who are not particularly good observers themselves(may have been selected as well for those very same conformist qualities) you have” a perfect storm” of mediocrity.
Bottom line,what I am saying here is that medical students are being screened for mechanical intelligence(the kind that shows up on standardized testing,obedience(they always follow the rules-saw that when I was teaching them at McGill) and ultimately for conformity and ,mediocrity.At the end of the day,you don’t really have doctors-you have medical bureaucrats-people who are very good at memorizing facts whether they come from textbooks,conferences or the latest scientific journals and following algorithms but not good at all at listening to people or developing creative solutions to problems.
On top of this we have regulatory bodies like State Medical Boards who are uniformly pushing conformity in the name of science-something I call “Scientific Fascism”. Almost every doctor I know or have seen who is good at creative solutions has had a problem with these regulatory bodies and some have been harassed out of practice or pushed to nervous breakdowns and even death by these Orwellian governing bodies and the pharmaceutical and insurance companies who are subsidizing them-all in the name of science! But more accurately representing money and power more than knowledge and efficacy.
So next time you go to your doctor,don’t be surprised.Perhaps the best approach is to consider them like civil service functionnaries. Get what you can from the real knowledge and technology they have and figure out how to manage your health on your own.Salaams,Ibrahim
