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Medical Malpractice Suits: Death By Medicine

February 11th, 2012

A recent report has found that Americans are more frightened of dying at the hands of their doctor than they are of a plane crash. The overwhelming majority of those who participated in the survey said that information about malpractice suits and medical errors would be the single most deciding factor in trusting a healthcare provider. These people must have heard that medical errors cause more deaths in the United States every year than car accidents, AIDS, or breast cancer.

In fact, for the airline industry to parallel medical errors in mortality rates a 280-person jet would have to crash every day of the year. This would account for the over 100,000 people who die annually due to complications in medical care, not to mention the nearly 2 million who are maimed and disabled. This malady is called iatrogenic disease, a disease that is a direct result of medical care. What is causing this epidemic? Many agree that the cause is over-treatment. More medicine is administered than necessary, people are hospitalized unnecessarily, and doctors prescribe drugs instead of healthy lifestyle choices. This is a major problem and it shows no signs of stopping.

In the ten year period between 1983 and 1993 the incidence of death by medical error, or iatrogenic disease, jumped 260% overall and 850% among patience receiving outpatient care. These statistics could only be an indication of the true numbers, because medical error is not often recorded on death certificates. Some people blame the increased number of deaths on a greater number of prescriptions, but the number of prescriptions issued has increased less than 40% in 10 years, compared with the 260% increased death rate. Instead, some doctors blame increased usage of anesthesia, especially among those receiving outpatient care.

Medical malpractice insurance rates have been skyrocketing, causing a small crisis among doctors who must be insured in order to practice. They complain of medical malpractice lawsuits going out of control, large cities awarding record settlements, too many people filing claims. Well can you blame people for filing claims? Doctors must be held accountable for their prescriptions, and if a doctor writes you a prescription that hurts you they deserve to be taken to court! This is truly an epidemic, and it must be stopped by holding irresponsible healthcare providers responsible. One in five Americans has experienced medical errors directly or has a family member who has suffered a medical error. If you feel you have suffered unnecessarily at the hands of a doctor, seek legal council and work it out with a lawyer.

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Medical Malpractice Suits: Death By Medicine

December 5th, 2011

A recent report has found that Americans are more frightened of dying at the hands of their doctor than they are of a plane crash. The overwhelming majority of those who participated in the survey said that information about malpractice suits and medical errors would be the single most deciding factor in trusting a healthcare provider. These people must have heard that medical errors cause more deaths in the United States every year than car accidents, AIDS, or breast cancer.

In fact, for the airline industry to parallel medical errors in mortality rates a 280-person jet would have to crash every day of the year. This would account for the over 100,000 people who die annually due to complications in medical care, not to mention the nearly 2 million who are maimed and disabled. This malady is called iatrogenic disease, a disease that is a direct result of medical care. What is causing this epidemic? Many agree that the cause is over-treatment. More medicine is administered than necessary, people are hospitalized unnecessarily, and doctors prescribe drugs instead of healthy lifestyle choices. This is a major problem and it shows no signs of stopping.

In the ten year period between 1983 and 1993 the incidence of death by medical error, or iatrogenic disease, jumped 260% overall and 850% among patience receiving outpatient care. These statistics could only be an indication of the true numbers, because medical error is not often recorded on death certificates. Some people blame the increased number of deaths on a greater number of prescriptions, but the number of prescriptions issued has increased less than 40% in 10 years, compared with the 260% increased death rate. Instead, some doctors blame increased usage of anesthesia, especially among those receiving outpatient care.

Medical malpractice insurance rates have been skyrocketing, causing a small crisis among doctors who must be insured in order to practice. They complain of medical malpractice lawsuits going out of control, large cities awarding record settlements, too many people filing claims. Well can you blame people for filing claims? Doctors must be held accountable for their prescriptions, and if a doctor writes you a prescription that hurts you they deserve to be taken to court! This is truly an epidemic, and it must be stopped by holding irresponsible healthcare providers responsible. One in five Americans has experienced medical errors directly or has a family member who has suffered a medical error. If you feel you have suffered unnecessarily at the hands of a doctor, seek legal council and work it out with a lawyer.

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Wholesome Diet – An Ayurvedic Way of Healthy Eating

November 18th, 2011

All the developments in scientific areas have made our lives easy and luxurious. Today we can enjoy those conditions which were away from dreams of our ancestors. But in this race we have left our joy, feelings and happiness somewhere, centuries back. We are living a very painful life today. We all need solutions for a healthy lifestyle.

Today we have a lot in name of health sciences and medical facilities. We have big surgical rooms where a surgeon can peep into the minutest part of our brains; they are capable to replace the “not-properly” working organs with new organs. Modern medical sciences have almost everything besides happiness of being healthy and health proper.

This is an era of transition. Things are changing very fast. IT revolution has changed the way to think a lot. People want to explore the newer horizons. Intellects of health industry are busy in developing newer and newer things. Today, most ignored concept of modern sciences, health and lifestyle are in hot list. Modern science accepted the concept of Holistic Sciences like Ayurveda, that without a good diet and lifestyle, complete health is a dream only.

Today there are many diet plans available around us – Diet for heart, diet for diabetics, diet for osteoarthritis and much more. Where is the diet for complete human body? Where is the wholesome diet, where is the diet which can nourish your whole body? It really makes sense to care the whole body, when we are targeting the complete health. But things are going towards wrong direction.

These days we have become more and more subjective about the body. We and our physicians feel that more and more specialization is a healthy practice. It seems to so. But reality is some what different when we approach the body with a Wholistic approach. I have changed Holistic in Wholistic. A science which covers every thing related to body is Wholistic. Ayurveda is so. In Ayurveda we cannot differentiate the human body in different parts of specialization. According to Ayurveda a complete Doctor -Vaidya is He, who knows all about human body, all aspects, all horizons of human body. So Ayurveda is more subjective in approach than modern day sciences.

When body is one, all organs and tissues are working for one complete body, then why to think differently about different organs? Diet for diabetic can manage the weight and sugar levels for the body. Special diet for heart can help the cardiac muscles and arteries. These are vital surely but not the only part of body which should be cared. The half knowledge, these diet plans are providing is increasing ignorance. To be more careful for a single organ causes ignorance, ignorance towards rest of the body.

I have seen many examples of all this during my clinical practice. More a person is conscious about health, more he suffers. They are conscious about weight, brain, heart and other vital parts. I found none with a complete consciousness towards complete body and complete health. This weight, brain etc. cause fear of death that is why we think about these only. But death is never a challenge to life. I met a patient of Insomnia last week at my clinic. For him life is to sleep, what he cannot do. He read somewhere that heavy, fatty diet will help him to sleep sound. He started all that. I put a question to him that he might have read it also that the diet he is taking to sleep may cause heart diseases also. He nodded. Then he answered, it is easy to face a death than not to sleep for the whole night. This is a main lacuna in our approach that we are never sure about what we are going to do. This patient was and I felt happy for him.

Second example may lead you to think twice about the altered diet you are taking. The patient I am talking is Mr. Verma, a case of severe obesity. He visited some modern day dietitian. The dietitian prescribed him high fiber diet and he skipped everything from his meal except half cooked veggies and juices. No sugar, no cholesterol and nothing else. Changes were dramatic and that fellow lost almost half of his weight. He met me in a social gathering and I advised him not to do that all. But the miraculous results were amazing him and he went on with the same for next one month or so. Last week I got a call and on other end it was Mrs. Verma. I was shocked by listening that Mr. Verma has been hospitalized due to blood in vomit. He was diagnosed severe Peptic Ulcer along with Portal Hypertension. Portal hypertension has caused esophageal varices so bleeding was more severe. Moral of this accident is, we should know the difference between ignorance and knowledge.

Mr. Verma is not alone, who is suffering from all this. There are so many people who have gone through same condition. Matter is the information; these health conscious people are collecting. On internet one can find a lot of information, in tons. But this information is altered smartly. People serve as much they need to serve for the sale of their package or diet plan.

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