“Just take a pill” We often hear these words from family, friends, and our physicians when we are feeling sick. We like to believe that medicine is a miracle, that there is a magic pill for our illnesses. However, is there? Long gone the days of doctor knows best, the medical field today is full of doubt, and uncertainty. Nowadays, Patients have the luxury to choose their options without relying on their physician’s decision as if they were children. Perhaps next time we are in pain, we should think twice before taking that pill. Is it necessary? Is it the answer for our chronic pain?
Atul Gwande introduces us to the model of the hurricane vs the ice cube in his book “Complications” by asking “are people more like ice cubes or like hurricanes?” …show more content…
We have come a long way from the assumption that a conjoined twin is a “double monster” which was the case of the first documented postmortem examination in the New World “It was performed on July 19,1553, on the island of Espanola, upon conjoined female twins connected at the lower chest, to determine if they had one soul or two (Gwande 192). With all the advancement in imaging, and diagnostics. We would like to believe that misdiagnosis have decreased, and that medicine has improved. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and we can’t blame it on medicine “doctors at Harvard put together a simple study. They went back into their hospital records to see how often autopsies picked up misdiagnoses in 1960 and 1970, before the advent of CT, ultrasound, nuclear scanning, and other technologies, and then in 1980, after those technologies became widely used. The researchers found no improvement. Regardless of the decade, physicians missed a quarter of fatal infections, a third of heart attacks, and almost two-thirds of pulmonary emboil in their patiens who died” (Gwande 198). These numbers are alarming, and it’s a clear indicator that there are flaws in the practice of medicine. The medical field’s fixation of the ice cube model has resulted in these devastating outcomes, in many cases the knowledge is available, but the physicians fail to apply it correctly-ineptitude. Feelings of shame or guilt for not getting it right the first time can contribute to the misdiagnose. Other times, it has nothing to do with feelings, and everything to do with knowledge. Knowledge, and understanding are limited. Perhaps the patient couldn’t communicate clearly to the physician? Or, maybe science affords a limited understanding of how hurricanes behave? (Gwande
Atul Gwande introduces us to the model of the hurricane vs the ice cube in his book “Complications” by asking “are people more like ice cubes or like hurricanes?” …show more content…
We have come a long way from the assumption that a conjoined twin is a “double monster” which was the case of the first documented postmortem examination in the New World “It was performed on July 19,1553, on the island of Espanola, upon conjoined female twins connected at the lower chest, to determine if they had one soul or two (Gwande 192). With all the advancement in imaging, and diagnostics. We would like to believe that misdiagnosis have decreased, and that medicine has improved. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and we can’t blame it on medicine “doctors at Harvard put together a simple study. They went back into their hospital records to see how often autopsies picked up misdiagnoses in 1960 and 1970, before the advent of CT, ultrasound, nuclear scanning, and other technologies, and then in 1980, after those technologies became widely used. The researchers found no improvement. Regardless of the decade, physicians missed a quarter of fatal infections, a third of heart attacks, and almost two-thirds of pulmonary emboil in their patiens who died” (Gwande 198). These numbers are alarming, and it’s a clear indicator that there are flaws in the practice of medicine. The medical field’s fixation of the ice cube model has resulted in these devastating outcomes, in many cases the knowledge is available, but the physicians fail to apply it correctly-ineptitude. Feelings of shame or guilt for not getting it right the first time can contribute to the misdiagnose. Other times, it has nothing to do with feelings, and everything to do with knowledge. Knowledge, and understanding are limited. Perhaps the patient couldn’t communicate clearly to the physician? Or, maybe science affords a limited understanding of how hurricanes behave? (Gwande