… on the way to the doctor’s office. Western medicine treats the human body more mechanically than it treats a car. Every body part is treated as if its connection to the rest of the body is coincidental.
You’ve got the ear, nose & throat guy, the ophthalmologist, the foot doc, the ladies’ parts doc, the intestines doc gastrosomething, the dermatologist for your skin, the neurologist for your nerves, the shrink for the lose nuts in your head, the dentist dude… Oh, wait. This one – the dentist – is a serious mess. You have the periodontist dude for your gums, the prosthodontist for your fake teeth, the teeth fence guy- orthodontist I think it is, the oral surgeon who digs in there with a pair of pliers and a jack hammer – and just to be clear dude and guy are unisex terms here. They’re all crowded in their in your one mouth and they all don’t like each other.
These specialists all treat their area exclusively and won’t touch the other guy’s body part.
Can you imagine taking your car to your regular family mechanic and getting referrals to drive it to the headlightologist to install broken lights, to the doordontist guy to fix the door lock, to the enginologist to see if your old car needs a pacemaker or an engine transplant. A car is treated with a more holistic approach than a human body.
Don’t get me wrong, I get the wealth of knowledge and phenomenal progress in medicine that comes from specialization. One could write volumes just from studying a human fingernail and it’s all quite awe-inspiring. It’s just how different doctors get to “own” your body as if the parts don’t belong to one entity. I understand the vastness and complexity of the inner world as you split the smallest component to infinity. But a lot of this specializing is just business.
If you go to your GP with a funny headache and you have good insurance, you will end up with referrals to at least three different specialists each one pricking and prodding and prescribing. By the time you’re done you have yourself a brand new disease that will last you as long as your insurance benefits. Yet all you needed was a nice walk to clear your mind.
If this trend continues, future humanoids will be mailing off their body parts for treatment and waiting on the mail carrier to deliver them. Today your head will be with the shrink while you wait for the podiatrist to return your foot.