Why does everyone want a test, a diagnosis, a pill? They want her to wave the magic wand, and it isn’t only that she has no wand but that there’s no magic in medicine and never was. The days of miraculous cures are gone – she’s thinking – or at least her days in believing in them are gone, and now what is she but an agony aunt and a drug dealer. Half of her time is spent not on diagnosing and treating primary illnesses, but on treating all the illnesses caused by side effects of the drugs she’s prescribed. She has become a doctor of side effects, treated with more drugs that create more side
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