No clearly marked exits in this hospital

Over the last few years, there's been (obviously) a fair amount of discusson around the medical establishment, its intentions, dark machinations, or alternatively savior-like imagery. I think a big misassumption that most of us make in entering this discussion is,

But surely, doctors want what's good for us.

And rightly so. To honestly assume there's an enormous conspiracy that has somehow co-opted every single individual in the medical industry is something of such profound evil, something so terrifying, we can't (or won't) conceptualize. So we say for sure, my doctor wants to see me healthy and well, and that's (for the most part) true. Making allowances for the fact that some in the field (as in every other) are genuinely ill-prepared and incompetent and some others evil and sociopathic, for the most part, doctors on an individual level do want to help you and believe they're doing so.

The trouble arises in the way the medical system itself has been designed. And that is really what the vaccine-skeptics (those mad anti-vaxxers) are pointing to, really, when we criticize or offer up our doubts. It's not saying that I genuinely think your physician who told you to get vaxxed, get on Ozempic, or take whatever other needlessly harmful drug or treatment meant to harm you and wanted you to suffer. Of course not. But it's worth remembering that these also are people operating within their own almost cult-like creed. It's very difficult, keeping an open mind, not affiliating yourself to any such creed as you go through life. For some people, it's a god in some shape or form, but for people in the medical industry (and several tangential fields), it's the unfaltering belief in medicine and the medical system.

Again, justified to an extent, because where would any of us be without medicine? But there's a fault in the argument here. If, for instance, we did away with the Catholic Church entirely, we'd lose countless fantastic works of art. However, few have stood admiring Michelangelo's work and contemplating the many glories and benefits of burning innocents at the stake. It's a deeply embedded human tendency, to take things as a whole, as black or white, and we must fight it assiduously, through our entire lives, because seeing in black and white is seldom helpful.

I've been dealing a little with the medical system lately, both in the stories I hear from people around me and on a personal level, and one thing that struck me was what a slippery slope this world is. While I like to imagine the apothecaries of yore as people whom you visited when ill, who went on to treat and cure said ailment (in as much as that was possible in those days) and put you on your way, I'm not sure that's true in our modern world.

Nowadays it's this awfully complex web of tests, bloodwork, scans and a myriad other things, not to mention several treatments prescribed "just for good measure" when nothing's wrong with you. It just seems to me like a world that draws you in and isn't inclined to let you go. Not lightly, anyway.

At the end of 2024, a friend dragged me to a doctor she knew, aware of my skepticism. I don't really see the point in going to the doctor if something's not actively bothering you or encumbering you, though there seem to be fewer and fewer of us who think this way. Anyway, that doctor recommended some bloodwork, which I did, and afterwards, I read online a bit about results, possible issues/solutions. The usual thing. Nothing major at all. Though it was surprising to me the lingo these websites and forums used - how willing people are, almost eager, to get diagnosed with major issues or look forward to a lifetime of treatment.

Why are we so desperately seeking to create problems where there are none?

Much as I tried, I couldn't find simple, clear cut answers like "you take an aspirin for a headache". It's always trying all these different treatments, monitoring, check-ups, slowly building an entire team of "your healthcare provider"s in any and every field who'd make of you a project, it seemed, that would last until the end of your life. And some people (many, in fact) seem to enjoy this perverse kind of attention.

I don't know about you, but I don't have a "my" anything doctor. Again, I go to the doctor if I am really sick, which thankfully has never been the case. I don't see the point of having several medical centers, hospitals and private doctors on speed-dial just to make sure I'm okay. I know I'm okay. I have an internal instinct that tells me.

And as I read, the penny dropped. I realized how easily I'd let myself be drawn down this slippery slope already - a consultation here, bloodwork there, obviously followed by more consultations, then presumably trial-and-error treatments that risk creating more problems (when you didn't even have a problem in the first place), then treatment, consultations, bloodwork for those new problems... you see how this never ends? And yet, I'm crazy for being skeptical of a system that's perfectly willing to put you on harsh antibiotics, cancer treatments and other serious drugs on the off-chance that there might be something wrong with you?

When I moved into my house, the heater in my bedroom leaked. I called a handyman who "fixed" it twice., after it came completely loose and flooded the room, and after two (or 3?) visits from said handyman, I discovered to my delight the damn thing still fucking leaked. Now it has a little cup under it and is left well enough alone. But somehow, that's not a mentality that's too popular in medicine. They keep thinking you gotta tinker away at things until you break them worse than they were, and it's not their fault. In medicine, as in most other fields, there's a few, very few forward-thinkers and trailblazers. But many of the doctors that treat you are just average people following a rhythm and law dictated from higher above. We all need a word of law, and for people in the medical industry, that's theirs. But it doesn't have to be yours - nothing that encourages you to ascribe blind faith to it should be.

It's scary to me how many people are willing to go down this slippery slope of tests and treatments when they don't really have to. And why? Do we just enjoy the attention? Is this a desperate bid to replace a god we feel is faltering? Are we still in our search for life eternal?

Personally, I'm a believer in leaving things the fuck alone. And in not taking risks for problems you aren't even sure are there. But at the end of the day, I think that's what matters most. I think if you believe, genuinely believe you're gonna be fine without all this needless to-ing and fro-ing, you will be. I also think these people gratefully embracing their status as "patient", as "sufferer of XYZ" are setting themselves up to be patients for the rest of their time here. It's not all in a state of mind, as Walter Wintle suggested. But much of it is.