in lingering to chit-chat?
care of this way of practicing medicine! Of course, both patients and doctors have been indoctrinated to quickly reach for a drug that only treats the symptoms of problems, not the roots. The education of doctors is largely influenced by pharmaceutical companies, which have made it all too easy for everyone to “sweep dirt under the carpet.” In other words, we are all facilitating or enabling this reliance on the pharmaceutical approach. HMOs must share some of the responsibility for this system, too. Their “perverse incentives” have made it so that it is more rewarding to give people a quick prescription, rather than spend the time addressing the real issues, the real roots of our diseases. In other words, the molecular dys-equilibrium created by years of poor nutrition is now addressed by a drug that often has many adverse side effects. The whole health care system is failing (“Crossing the quality chasm: a new health care system for the 21 st century,” Institute of Medicine, 2001) be
