NOTE THE POINT
Dr Zahida Shah
If youask medical practitioners of our community “How common is it to see apparentlynormal looking young individuals walking into their clinics with a bunch offiles?” Most of them will nod saying a lot of them indeed.
Fewdays back a young adolescent girl walked into my clinic with lots of files inher hands. After going through all the files and a detailed consultation, Ifound everything normal, so I asked what was the need for these unwarrantedinvestigations? She replied “our family believes in regular screening, so all thefamily members get screened every six months. We call the laboratory assistanthome and he collects samples and also offers good discount if we do moretests.” She continued to say “Mam we are a very health conscious family”.
Herwords didn’t sound new to me because I hear it so often from my patients that Ihad actually started to believe that we are a very health conscious society.But lately I have started questioning my own belief because I see disproportionbetween the health consciousness and the amount of disease and illness amongour people .
I don’tknow how many of you will agree with me but I am forced to see us as people whoare “Disease Conscious” rather than “Health Conscious”. We spend more money indisease detection rather than health promotion. We talk more about diseaseawareness rather than health awareness, and we do spend more time outsidedoctor’s offices and labs rather than in sports, parks, playgrounds, fitnesscenters , libraries and recreation halls.
Weconstantly come across ads like full body scans and complete blood tests ondiscounted prices, free testing and family package testing offers and so on. Itgoes to show that our health care system emphasizes more on finding diseaserather than on living a healthy life. One reason could be that there is moremoney in disease than in wellness.
Agreedthat screening is a mainstay of modern medical practice but there are definiteprotocols and these protocols are evidence based. They need to be followed andrespected both by common people and the medical practitioners. Patient centeredmedical practitioners will always follow protocols.
Let uschoose our physicians wisely and follow their recommendations and let themfocus on disease diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, while we focus on truewellness. Let us transform the way we look at health consciousness:
Talk more about health instead of illness
Look deeper into the connection of disease with emotions andlife style.
Spend more energy to focus on mental, emotional andspiritual wellbeing realizing that our physical well being is the end product.
Counselespecially the younger generation more about health, happiness, positivity andits relation to productivity.
And for policy makers , alongside with war against diseases, spend money and time on health awareness programs as well…
This attitude will not only help us prevention of diseasebut also improve the well-being of those who are already enrolled as patients.
Finally this is my favorite cocktail for beinghealthy…..”Pray regularly, move frequently, eat moderately and love abundantly”