RSS
Home
Best myths about aging bodies: The doctor can fix anything that breaks
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Your body will not stay young forever. Some myths about how bodies age lead to choices that do not serve you well.
Myth #1: The doctor can fix anything that breaks.
Many people manage their health with the belief that sometime in the near doctros will be able to cure all illness.
I once asked a group of teenagers with cigarettes in their hands what would happen to their bodies if they continued to smoke. One said, “If I get lung cancer, it won’t be for thirty or so years. By then the doctors will have a pill that will cure me.”
Americans launched the war on cancer and the war in Viet Nam around the same time. We waged both wars thinking and hoping that by escalating our investment, we would win. Ultimately we came to understand that we could not win the war in Viet Nam. Instead of waging war, we waged peace.
We continue to wage the war on disease with the continued hope of a world without cancer or heart disease or infections like AIDS. After all, we did it with small pox. We may see a new scientific breakthrough that leads to the yet-unimagined cure for all cancer. However, many of the finest scientific minds think that this war cannot be won, and it’s time to wage peace with illness. Maybe not all diseases can be cured, but they can be managed as chronic illnesses.
The ounce of prevention has always been and will always continue to be the better choice over the pound of cure.
Vicki Rackner MD is a surgeon who left the operating room to help patients and their family caregivers manage their health through her company Medical Bridges . Dr. Rackner helps both individuals and businesses stretch their health care dollars through better doctor-patient collaboration. To get your free special report The Biggest Skeleton in Your Doctor's Closet, email DrRackner@MedicalBridges.com or call (425) 451-3777
More About:
Diabetes
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
.jpg)
In this photo released by Harpo Productions, Inc., talk-show host Oprah Winfrey interviews actor Dennis Quaid during a taping of "The Oprah …
