Word of the Week #278:
So, I recently got back into physiotherapy to work on a strained ligament in my knee. Again.
And each time I go into the clinic, I think to myself, “There is no way more of us could not benefit from this.”
We often talk about how people are reluctant to seek professional help for mental health issues, but when I think about it, I wonder if we are just reluctant to seek help in general.
How many people have we heard grumbling about aches and pains and minor ailments, and yet, they barely ever seek professional help to address the root cause.
How often have we heard someone tell us that their loved ones could have been saved, if only the disease had been diagnosed a few weeks or a few months earlier? And yet, do we go for regular, comprehensive check ups.
I feel like our entire understanding of healthcare is backwards.
If I show up to the doctor, the first thing I’m asked is, “What is wrong?”
It makes sense in the current scenario, but it is not the way things should be. It should not be assumed that I waited till something was wrong till I went to the doctor.
Instead, the doctor should run a broad range of diagnostic tests and tell me if something is wrong.
Do I need to eat more veggies? Am I getting enough exercise? Is my sleep schedule good enough? Is there anything I should be doing that I am currently not, or anything I shouldn’t be doing that I currently am?
These are all things that should be discussed with healthcare professionals based on actual personal data, not based on some generalised metrics.
The first time I visited a “good” orthopaedist was an eye-opening experience for me. The guy took one look at my shoulders and knew that I am left-handed, that I write a certain way (I don’t really know if there is a name for it, but a lot of lefties including Obama and Bruce Willis write that way), and that it had led to a muscle deformity in my left shoulder which was making it painful for me to participate in overhead activities such as basketball.
We need to stop treating healthcare as a “disease care” system.
We need to get ahead of the problem and actually work on preventive and holistic healthcare that analyses everything we do and addresses every issue we could expect to encounter based on the lives we have built for ourselves.
I know it is a pipe dream at based, but it seems like something worth dreaming about.
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