Dr Vernon Coleman is a medical doctor with an attitude. He wrote
the book ‘How to stop your doctor killing you.’ That should give you an idea of
what kind of person he is. He holds very strong views on the medical profession,
vaccines, government and politicians. He is of the opinion that anything that
the government organizes is required to be inefficient, uncaring and
incompetently run.
Coleman qualified as a doctor in 1970 and worked as a GP for
10 years in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. He quit the
profession more than 20 years ago because he wanted to try and change the
world. ‘You can’t do that working inside the system,’ he says.
The controversial author believes that the medical
profession in its present state has become a danger to mankind.
“Which of these people do you think poses the greatest
threat to your life: a burglar, a mugger, a drunken driver, a drug-crazed
lunatic or a temporarily insane relative running amok with a sharp knife?” he asks.
It's none of them. The person most likely to kill you,
Coleman says, is your doctor.
He makes a shocking claim, at least to the profession
itself, that a staggering amount of evidence to show that modern western
doctors, equipped with fancy drugs, exotic forms of surgery and impressive
sounding radiotherapy techniques, are ranked alongside cancer, heart disease
and stroke as major killers.
He could have coined the proverb which says: A young doctor
means a new graveyard had it not been attributed to the Germans. An opponent of
a national health system, Coleman believes that this has stolen the intimacy and
privacy of the doctor-client relationship and not only made it public, but
patently dangerous to the patient.
Coleman, a popular columnist and author of more than 100
books goes against the medical grain by informing his readers that at least two
thirds of all tests and investigations ordered by doctors and cost patients a
fortune are useless. Now there goes the analytical laboratory business out of
the window.
For example, he says, one survey showed that the routine
examination of blood and urine contributes to only one per cent of diagnoses
made. This reminds me of the case of a business partner who after a car
accident went for a battery of tests that came out with negative result implying
that his injuries were not that serious. That was until exactly three months
later when another practitioner accidentally discovered a life threatening pulmonary
embolism that was a direct result of the accident.
So why does the doctor order these tests even if they were useless?
Dr Coleman man says that it’s because doctors are trained that way. Young and
newly qualified doctors are encouraged by consultants to order all available
tests perhaps to keep the laboratories in business, a case one hand washing the
other. Little thought is given to the costs of all these tests to the patient.
Secondly, doctors order tests in order to impress their
patients, colleagues, students and, of course, themselves, Coleman says.
Thirdly, doctors frequently order unnecessary tests because
they are planning to write papers for medical journals and they need lots of
data to fill up the pages and make themselves look clever. Lastly, tests are
done to protect doctors from litigation or possible accusations of negligence.
The moral is simple, Dr Coleman says, if your doctor
arranges for tests to be done, ask him or her if they are really necessary. If
the answer is no, then what is the point?
You can read more of Vernon Coleman’s opinions about
anything and everything on his website http://www.vernoncoleman.com
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