Modern medicine

Much that bears looking at this morning but unfortunately most is same old same old. The Food Police swing into the schools this morning with sirens blaring and riot shields at the ready. The government is telling us what we will spend our money on - that is what is left of it after they've applied the tax vacuum cleaner to the wallet. Nothing new here. The minority government has been forced to climb down over the alternative medicine stuff because they don't have the numbers. This is not painted as a climb down, of course. The spin doctors fire up the afterburners and it is wrapped in some sort of excuse speak I didn't even bother to read. Nothing new here. Having not got their way, however, the Government is trying a different tack. Annette King is giving the hosptial pass (pun intended) to Hodgson with instructions that if democarcy won't fit the Bill the peasants will be forced to do as they are told by Ministerial decree. Why are we not surprised by this?

Colin James column was the piece that held my attention for longest this morning. He is normally a pretty dry sort of a stick and he interests me little but this morning I stuck with him. I usually try and avoid matters pertaining to health in these ramblings for reasons that will be obvious to some but Mr James makes some general points this morning that we would all do well to heed.

At last I have found someone who has realised something that struck me years ago. Medicine is not a precise science. Superficially that may sound bonkers but I'm afraid it is the ghastly truth. I was told too many moons ago to be comfortable to remember that medicine was a marriage between science and art. That appealed to me greatly then and was one of the many reasons I kept going. It has dismayed me to see that over the years science has been suing for divorce and has progressivley been given the house, the kids, the bach, the boat and the Volvo. Poor old art has been forced under Grafton Bridge. And it is just not fair as medicine is not and will never be a precise science.

The great myth about modern medicine (and it has come into being in my working lifetime) is that anything is curable. Diagnosis should be precise to the point of perfection and this should be available at no cost, with no mistakes yesterday. This myhth is reinforced with every new 'medical breakthrough' that bursts onto the six o'clock news between another bombing in Iraq and a cat stuck up a tree in Titirangi. Every new advance is a 'must have' item for a health service that struggles to do the tried and proven in an efficient way. Because a new technolgy exists somewhere, if anyone suffers because it wasn't availbale instantly here then the Health Service is stuffed.

This totally unrealistic expectation of the great unwashed as to what the scientific part of modern medicine can deliver has me so disillusioned with the profession that I have enjoyed for thirty years that I tear what little hair I have out in despair on a daily basis.

Oh yes, National is going to cure all this if they succeed at the next election. Yeah right.

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