Where are the Marcus Welby(s)?

​Is medicine advancing?  And if so, are doctors taking better care of their patients?  The 1960’s and 70’s aired a ‘doctor’ show called Marcus Welby MD.  Robert Young played a family doctor who always put his patients’ needs first.  That was fiction.  To some extent, though, it mirrored reality.  When did you last hear the phrase, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’?  

​In high school, I saw the school counselor about an issue I was having at home.  The counselor gave me an exercise since I was on the track team.  

​“When you are running the 100-yard dash, and you get to the finish line, imagine that you have beaten your obstacle,” he told me.  He didn’t prescribe me any drugs.

​Today, I work in the healthcare industry, where I talk to doctors and patients about prescription drugs not covered by insurance.  What I consistently hear is that the solution to every medical condition is a prescription drug.  Doctors should be prescribing a healthier lifestyle for their patients.  It’s a two-sided coin.  The patient convinces his doctor he has done everything to relieve his headache.  The doctor prescribes him Nurtec.  For 10 years, I have heard the frustration in patients' voices.  Many of them are prescribed drugs that are not helping them.

​What if patients took better care of their health?  That would weed out the ‘so-called’ modern doctors who have the ‘pill-popping’ philosophy and make room for the ‘old-school’ doctors who look at the big picture before making a diagnosis.

​You might be thinking that prescription drugs are necessary.  You would be right in some cases.  But, health issues, like Type II Diabetes, Hypertension, High Cholesterol, and others, can be addressed with a healthier lifestyle.  That’s called preventative medicine.  This requires discipline on the part of the patient.  Maybe it’s easier to get a prescription from the doctor.  Just think about it.  By doing away with Old-School Medicine, we also eliminate the good doctors.

~N. Acharya