Friday, 31 October 2014
After practising medicine for almost 40 years as a general physician, I have long realised the limitations of current conventional therapy. Despite enormous expense and research, most of our treatments aim at relieving symptoms and not treating the underlying cause. (Is it in the best interests of the pharmaceutical industry to cure diseases?)
I've also realised how many complimentary therapies there are which are also helping our patients, in most cases ignored by my conventional colleagues. While I am no expert in all of these, I have endeavoured to include those which I feel are helpful into my medical practice (integrative medicine). See my website (www.drgerald.co.nz). The increased power this has not only on treating the disease, but giving the patient the hope and ability to look after their own disease (rather than "take this pill") can make a major difference.
However prevention is more important than early diagnosis and treatment, and this is something that we have done very poorly. If you look at the graphs, all of today's diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, strokes, neurological diseases are on the rise, some of them the increase is almost exponential. It almost seems the more money we throw at the problem the less successful you become. However there are answers out there, what we need to do is encourage not just laypeople, but doctors and health decision-makers to look outside as well as inside the box.
I've also realised how many complimentary therapies there are which are also helping our patients, in most cases ignored by my conventional colleagues. While I am no expert in all of these, I have endeavoured to include those which I feel are helpful into my medical practice (integrative medicine). See my website (www.drgerald.co.nz). The increased power this has not only on treating the disease, but giving the patient the hope and ability to look after their own disease (rather than "take this pill") can make a major difference.
However prevention is more important than early diagnosis and treatment, and this is something that we have done very poorly. If you look at the graphs, all of today's diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, strokes, neurological diseases are on the rise, some of them the increase is almost exponential. It almost seems the more money we throw at the problem the less successful you become. However there are answers out there, what we need to do is encourage not just laypeople, but doctors and health decision-makers to look outside as well as inside the box.
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