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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Is there any benefit in African Medicine
Message-ID: <1608@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-May-85 00:24:04 EDT
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Posted: Fri May 17 00:24:04 1985
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Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
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> With all due respect to Steve, & to the many honest & dedicated
> medical practicianers in the US & elsewhere, this is not my experience
> with Western medicine.
> 
> The US physician's first interest is to avoid running afoul of the
> AMA
> 
> The basic orientation of natural medicine is to prevent disease by
> keeping people healthy; the basic orientation of the AMA seems to be
> alleviate the symptom & ignore the disease.
> 
>  Jeff Hull            {decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,scdrdcf,ucbvax}

	To address the last first.  Ignoring the disease is not what they
teach us to do in Med School.  Not only do they cover the symptoms and all
the possible diseases, but they also keep reminded us to treat the illness
(which is what I think you meant.)
	Two, I belong to the AMA, and I'll tell you, they have a lot of trouble
getting physicians to join.  Medicine is not a closed shop and the AMA is not
a union and I'd wish people would stop treating it like one.
	Three - as far as keeping people healthy - have you ever really TRIED
to tell someone to lose weight, give up smoking, or take up walking. It just
doesn't work -- it's like saying "Give up everything you like, and start doing
everything you hate because it's good for."
	And just to add to that,  lung cancer deaths in doctors started falling
15 years before they started falling in the general population - mostly
because doctors quit smoking before everybody else, so much for a lack of
health concern.

	Sorry that you had such a bad experience with your physicians, Jeff,
but 99% of the MDs I know (and I'm meeting more every day) do not fit your
description.

-- 
				Craig Werner
				!philabs!aecom!werner
		What do you expect?  Watermelons are out of season!