I’ve always had mixed feelings about doctors. In one hand I know that they’re there to help me if I have a problem with my body. On the other hand I’ve had nothing but bad help from every doctor I’ve ever visited, and if it wasn’t bad, it definitively was a waste of money and time.
Unfortunately I’m not a qualified doctor and I live in a country that will not provide even the most basic of medicines without a “doctors” prescription. But I’m also a dreamer and here’s a brief redaction of one of my dreams.
Maybe dream isn’t a good word for it, because it’s more of a conscious wish.
My dislike for doctors started when I was 13, up until then I had a generally very healthy life, no broken limbs, serious infections or operations. The worse were Chickenpox and Mumpes which were handed down to me by my older brother.
Anyway back to 13... I contracted the flu and made the mistake of seeing a Dr. The Dr. prescribed 500mg a Amoxicillin (yes I can remember the type) a week later I developed really bad flu and my tonsils had swollen up so much I couldn’t eat, or drinking without pain. I managed to crawl to the “Dr.” again and the idiot prescribed me yet more antibiotics, this time Amoxicillin and another type. My symptoms didn’t get any worse but they sure didn’t get any better until I completely stopped taking the antibiotics.
In all I was out of action for 7 weeks of a great Mediterranean summer. My tonsils never really recovered, so another Dr. thought they should be removed. Luckily I didn’t attended the surgery because I was eventually able to cure myself with 30mg of Potassium Chloride for a week.
Over the years, I’ve had other issues with “Drs” from wrong prescriptions for Conjunctivitis, to charging me $100 for a 2 second diagnosis, to a Dr not willing to prescribe a medicine that would have resolved sever inflammation from a fall.
What have I learned from Drs?
I’ve learned that they can harm you just as well as they can help. And according to research by Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School Public Health (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10904513?dopt=Abstract and http://faculty.jhsph.edu/?faculty_id=667); doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US.
I now research my symptoms and diagnose myself. If I can’t find a legally available treatment I will go to a Dr and ask him to prescribe what I need. Needless to say I have been healthy since; apart from some broken vertebrae.
Get to your dream already!
My dream is MedNet.
What is MedNet? MedNet is an international medical information network. All consultancies, practices, surgeries, homeopathies, holistic centres, hospitals, dentist, pharmacies, etc are connected. The network contains a knowledge base of every medical procedure, medicine, herb, compound, allergy, virus, bacteria ever discovered by man.
How does it work? Numerous geographically dispersed connected databases with mankind’s medical knowledge. Health providers use a national registry system that references the knowledge.
Example:
In the USofA poorer individuals have a Medicaid number, this is a record in a database. Now say I got the Flu and decided to play Russian roulette by going to a Dr., I could log on to my national MedNet by entering my Medicaid number; I could then press a “I’m not feeling well button”, it would then ask me a couple of questions to determine how bad I'm feeling. Because I’m lazy and I want to see a Dr. I just click on “I don’t know” the system then looks for the nearest practice with an available slot or my usual Dr. and an appointment with Dr. Suresh Chandra is made.
With my Medicaid card I crawl over to the Dr. who then with my approval looks up my medical records. He proceeds to diagnose me and enters my symptoms. MedNet knows that the latest N1H1 influenza is going around in my area and also knows what’s been reported as the best treatment. The Dr. doesn’t like MedNet so he wasn’t paying attention when MedNet recommended a allergy cross referenced treatment and figured he knew that all I need is some Amoxicillin.
The Dr. can only prescribe medicines on MedNet so he goes to the “Treatment” tab and selects Amoxicillin... MedNet tells him that antibiotics are ineffective against Viral infections and could cause death. MedNet then reminds the Dr. that patients have reported that the most effective treatment has been a combination of 100mg Calcium Sulphate, 1gr Vitamin C and warm UV light daily.
I go to the nearest Chemist with my Medicaid card, the Chemist looks up my treatment record and gives it to me.
I go home and do the treatment. 5 days later I feel much better but I notice a wart on my foot, so I log on to MedNet; I get prompted to confirm efficacy of my previous treatment, I then try and arrange an appointment for my wart... this time I feel better so I enter my symptoms. MedNet concurs with my diagnosis and also notes other patients having contracted Human Papilloma virus soon after visiting Dr. Suresh’s practice. MedNet recommends a treatment of applying a 3cmx3cm piece of duct tape over the Wart for 14days and alerts the Department of Public Health of an outbreak of Human Papilloma virus at Dr. Suresh’s practice deferring all future appointments to the practice.
We already have similar systems available to the Tax Office and Road Authorities, I believe it’s much more appropriate to apply this technology to the health industry.
The 1st step is getting the knowledge in to databases, then getting the practices to connect securely and then letting the system grow organically.
Microsoft is still trialing HealthVault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_HealthVault) and there are numerous other systems out there like Google Health and Indivo... these are fairly useless without integration with health providers. I believe access to accurate health information really needs to be a basic Human Right and our archaic health management systems need to embrace the 21 century. Some hospitals have HIT systems that allow digital sharing of patients records, but again they lack the integration.
I guess at the end of the day I would like to breath in to a device connected to MedNet and for the device to tell me every treatable problem I have. Like when your car goes for a service they plug the ECU (Electronic Control Unit) in and print out the fault codes.
I would also like my DNA sequence and possible hacks so I can make my beard grow to a defined length :).