The Choice is YOURS - by Carlos Bayma

Here is an enlightening article by Dr. Carlos Bayma (with his permission) on prevention in medicine and the current obstacles to this. It's worth reading carefully and reflecting on!

The choice is yours!

by Carlos Bayma - https://drcarlosbayma.com/

Consider an iceberg. Only 10% are above the waterline. The rest, 90%, is submerged. Transfer this to health and medicine: above, curative medicine, the traditional kind that focuses on disease and industrialized drugs; below, preventive medicine (or true medicine), the kind that doesn't let disease manifest (in the 10% above) by acting on the causes when they are just forming, but have not yet expressed themselves.

In the part of the iceberg above the water, profit is the driving force, corruption is the spice and ignorance is the modus operandi. In the submerged part, there is medicine that costs little, is effective and requires solid foundations based on the study of Human Physiology, a gigantic and profound field.

Staying up to date with human physiology comes at a high cost. Not exactly financially, but in terms of dedicating hours to studying the most important book in health: Treatise on Medical Physiology, by Guyton & Hall. For the knowledge it provides, “Guyton” (as doctors call it), despite its price tag, is very cheap: it costs around R$ 400.00.

Pharmaceutical laboratories have decided to “give a helping hand” to doctors who don't like it, who say they don't have the time or who simply don't want it, by crushing and compacting information and advertising for their “medicines” into inserts, continuing education programs, meetings, symposia and congresses and throwing them at professionals as absolute truths of “modern medicine”. To improve the acceptance of the professionals they approach and “pamper”, they offer treats: free samples, pens, card holders, diaries and... free trips, accommodation and congresses and... cars, office refurbishments and... who knows what else!

That's it! The disaster is done. Add to this the appallingly poor medical program at Brazilian universities and the ground has been plowed for lucrative medicine that sells and cures nothing. To prevent doctors from uniting and gaining strength, they are played off against each other (from the most subliminal to the most blatant). If the base is weak, the medical profession is not strong enough to stand up to the “boss” - the pharmaceutical industry.

Isolated voices in the desert: doctors who won't sell out! But Big Pharma's laboratories don't care: just discredit the bearers of these voices and it's all over: “Charlatan!”, “Crazy!”, “Profiteer!”, they say. They rely on the media - which is also sold out - and also on other doctors, who have already been co-opted by the long, adhesive tentacles of the disease industry.

Worst of all, patients (at least the majority of them) have the same mentality as backward doctors. The extent of Big Pharma's power cannot and should not be underestimated, as it would seem only logical that the patient is the one who makes the profit. The co-opted doctor is just an intermediary, a useful “fool”, who lends a supposed credibility to the “truths” of disease medicine.

But since you can't fool everyone all the time, I see glimmers of awareness and awakening in patients, who are no longer fools. “Dr. Google” may not always be a reliable source of information, but it is gradually pulling people out of their ignorance, lethargy and passivity when it comes to health, their own health.

Let's hope we're starting a new cycle in healthcare, leaving aside the patient as profit and - in fact - bringing profit to that patient's health. The Universe (whatever that means) is already conspiring in our favor!

Carlos Bayma is a doctor specializing in Urology and Urodynamics in Recife-PE. He has recently been trained in Advanced Human Physiology and Bioidentical Hormone Modulation.