Prepare to Defend Yourself ... How to Navigate the Healthcare System and Escape with Your Life

Chapter 1. The Language of Medicine: Sit, Stay, Diagnose!

C H A P T E R 1 THE LANGUAGE OF MEDICINE SIT, STAY, DIAGNOSE! THE LANGUAGE OF MEDICINE 9 B efore I get too far into the specifics of self-empowerment in the system, I think it’s helpful to begin with a brief history of medicine . Now, I can already see your eyelids starting to get heavy, but indulge me here. Knowing how the system got like this helps a lot in understanding why and how those who surround you and do unspeakable things to you in your moment of need view you, assess you, process you, talk to you, and ultimately what you can and can’t do about it to protect yourself. Or to put it in the more elegant words of H. G. Wells, “History is a race between education and catastrophe.” As far as historians have been able to tell, by 4000 BC many religions had identified certain of their deities with healing. Without any understanding of the process of disease or how drugs worked, most believed that a person became ill because he or she had earned disfavor with the gods. Therefore, culpability, shame, and ostracism were quickly associated with illness. Sadly, this mentality sometimes holds over even today, especially in the areas of addiction and mental illness. In particular, the temples of Saturn, and later of Asclepius in Asia Minor, became recognized as healing centers. People would travel to these “centers of healing” and offer prayers and sacrifices. Dream interpretations played a significant role in the ancient healing process (sounds kind of Jungian, doesn’t it?), and much like the modern equivalent of social services support, the effects of the patient’s daily life were considered to be paramount for a good outcome. Beyond the metaphysical, however, the priests or ancient physicians who attended and supported such practices also stitched wounds, set broken bones, and used narcotics—specifically opium—for pain. On the surface it might seem that there weren’t many similarities between the ancients and what we see today, but consider the following . In order to curry favor with the temperamental gods, supplicants (patients) would place offerings (co-pays) of animal flesh—say, a haunch of beef or a game bird—on a fiery altar of the respective god. This barbecued tribute also supported the lifestyle of the priests, who ate the cooked flesh. And that is the story of how we arrived at professional fees. As you can see, there were a lot of similarities to our current system even then. These spiritually oriented hospitals were also structurally similar to what we now see in modern clinics, care centers, and hospitals. Plans for 10 CHAPTER 1 a fifth-century BC temple in Athens dedicated to Asclepius showed large rooms, 24 by 108 feet, for multiple dreamer-patients. This is amazingly close in dimension to its modern equivalent, the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), or “recovery room.” On a similar note a network of Brahmanic hospitals were established in Sri Lanka as early as 431 BC, and King Ashoka of Hindustan established a chain of hospitals about 230 BC. These might well be the first examples of an organized healthcare system. Around 100 BC the Romans established specialized hospitals, the valetudinaria, to treat their sick and injured soldiers. This was just the early analog to our Veterans Administration hospitals. This was less a benevolent act than pure pragmatism. The soldiers’ care was important because the vigor of the legions increased the perceived power of the empire. Literary sources occasionally mention ancient hospitals, but only documents from Egypt reveal how widespread and even secular they were. Testimonia from the temples of Dendera, Thebes, and Memphis in Egypt record a multitude of hospitals founded by private individuals and independent of ecclesiastical or religious influence. These early records show that the origin of the hospital as an independent institution dedicated to medical care and not just as an offshoot of worship can be dated to the third quarter of the fourth century. Most historians agree that the earliest example of the modern concept of a hospital dates from AD 331, when Emperor Constantine, having been converted to Christianity, abolished all pagan hospitals and created the opportunity for a new approach to caring for the ill. Until then, disease had spiritually isolated the sufferer from the community. This new Christian tradition emphasized the close relationship of the sufferer to his fellow humans...