Category: How To Drop Out Of Medicine

Most of the breakthroughs in medical history are rooted in the willingness to challenge assumptions…to dare to kill the sacred cows.

Assumptions like:

• Doctors could never unwittingly kill their patients (Ignaz Semmelweiss)
• Bacteria could never survive the acidity of the stomach (Barry Marshall and Robin Warren on H.pylori)
• Babies have to be grown in utero (Robert G Edwards on IVF)
• Women can’t menstruate and think at the same time (Mary Putnam Jacobi vs Professor Edward Clarke)
• Viruses can’t cause cancer (Peyton Rous on Rous Sarcoma Virus)
• Diseases can’t be spread by a simple protein (Stanley Prussiner on prions)
• You are the average of your parents traits aka (Gregor Mendel on heredity)
• The immune system plays no role in Cancer (James Allison on Tumour immunology)
• Being repeatedly kicked and beaten in the head causes brain damage (Bennet Omalu on chronic traumatic encephalopathy)

These were the assumptions supported, championed and staunchly defended by the medical establishment of the time.

You think you can treat cancer by just removing this negative signal on a T-cell?

“Everyone was against me. But I knew I was right.”

“There are times I wish I never looked at [former professional NFL player] Mike Webster’s brain. It has dragged me into worldly affairs I do not want to be associated with. Human meanness, wickedness, and selfishness. People trying to cover up, to control how information is released. I started this not knowing I was walking into a minefield. That is my only regret.”

These were some of the responses and reactions to the act of someone challenging a deeply held assumption.

A sacred cow.

This is a common pattern throughout human history.

Something is crazy, until it isn’t.

We ignore the new thing, resist the new thing, and then we celebrate the new thing.

Given that we know this, then it seems as if the limiting factor for our next breakthroughs isn’t knowledge, or technology or money…but ridicule.

Ridicule is the rate limiting step of your next breakthrough.

Being willing to be made fun of, have your mistakes pointed out and be opposed at every turn is the cost of entry for discovering a breakthrough.

Being willing to ask silly questions is at the heart of challenging assumptions, in order to discover what others have overlooked.

So rather than train Medics in how to milk our sacred cows, perhaps we need to empower them to try and kill them instead.

Those that survive the onslaught of intellectual challenge will be all the better for it.

And those that die will act as a beacon to show us what we didn’t know we were overlooking.

We don’t need you to milk the sacred cows. We need you to try and kill them.

Most of the breakthroughs in medical history are rooted in the willingness to challenge assumptions…to dare to kill the sacred cows.

Assumptions like:

• Doctors could never unwittingly kill their patients (Ignaz Semmelweiss on hand washing)
• Bacteria can’t survive the acidity of the stomach (Barry Marshall and Robin Warren on H.pylori)
• Babies can only grow inside the womb (Robert G Edwards on IVF)
• Women can’t menstruate and think at the same time (Mary Putnam Jacobi vs Professor Edward Clarke)
• Viruses can’t cause cancer (Peyton Rous on Rous Sarcoma Virus)
• Diseases can’t be spread by a simple protein (Stanley Prussiner on prions)
• You are the average of your parents traits aka “blended inheritance” (Gregor Mendel on heredity)
• The immune system plays no role in Cancer (James Allison on Tumour immunology)
• Being repeatedly kicked and beaten in the head causes brain damage (Bennet Omalu on chronic traumatic encephalopathy)

These were assumptions supported, championed and staunchly defended by the medical establishment of the time.

You think you can treat cancer by just removing this negative signal on a T-cell?

“Everyone was against me. But I knew I was right.”

“There are times I wish I never looked at [former professional NFL player] Mike Webster’s brain. It has dragged me into worldly affairs I do not want to be associated with. Human meanness, wickedness, and selfishness. People trying to cover up, to control how information is released. I started this not knowing I was walking into a minefield. That is my only regret.”

These were some of the responses and reactions to the act of someone challenging a deeply held assumption.

A sacred cow.

This is a common pattern throughout human history.

Something is crazy, until it isn’t.

We ignore the new thing, resist the new thing, and then we celebrate the new thing.

Given that we know this, then it seems as if the limiting factor for our next breakthroughs isn’t knowledge, or technology or money…but ridicule.

Ridicule is the rate limiting step of your next breakthrough.

Being willing to be made fun of, have your mistakes pointed out and be opposed at every turn is the cost of entry for discovering a breakthrough.

Being willing to ask silly questions is at the heart of challenging assumptions, in order to discover what others have overlooked.

So rather than train Medics in how to milk our sacred cows, perhaps we need to empower them to try and kill them instead.

Those that survive the onslaught of intellectual challenge will be all the better for it.

And those that die will act as a beacon to show us what we didn’t know we were overlooking.

Your boss may have hired you to milk the sacred cows, to simply maintain the status quo.

But your patients, your community, your great great grandkids and your true potential need you to try and kill them as well.

HT: Gabriel Miller

If you could be paid to be infected with a curable disease…on the condition that you did NOT use the cure, only managed the symptoms…would you do it?

And if you’re quietly asking yourself “How much would they pay me” then I’ll count that as a “Yes, provided the terms and conditions are right.”

But consider this scenario.

If you could be paid to allow someone you love to be infected with a curable disease…on the condition that they didn’t use the cure, but only managed the symptoms…AND you would be paid as long as they stayed sick but FIRED and driven out of your career the moment they were cured…would you do it?

And if you were entrusted with the cure, how long would you wait before administering it…and losing your current means of making a living?

Sadly, the second scenario is the one most of us are currently signed up for.

Instead of being in the business of healthcare, our actions, protocols, hierarchies and business models map more accurately to being in the “sick maintenance” business.

Deal with the most severe and debilitating symptoms with the available medication and procedures.

Only react to what comes through the door.

Deal only with those who can access you (e.g relevant health insurance, transport, community support for seeking medical assistance etc).

Do your job the way you’ve been trained to do it.

But don’t you dare do anything that could solve the day to day problems and make your current job complete redundant and obsolete.

Of course, the immediate objection is the use of the word “curable”.

“There’s nothing we can do about disease X” some may argue.

Maybe there isn’t.

Or maybe you’re too busy being paid to keep people sick, that you’re wittingly or unwittingly ignoring solutions and actions that hold the key to curing the incurable.

The challenge then is to ask:If you were suddenly going to be paid for curing your patients…and FIRED and driven out of your career the moment they became sick…how would that change what you do each day?

“To ask the right question is already half the solution to the problem.” – Carl Jung
Malaria is a terrible disease.
Malaria kills 600,000 people every year, and incapacitates millions more.
Malaria kills more than a person a minute.
Malaria is the most devastating disease spread by Earth’s most lethal creature.
And yet, despite all of this, we still choose to do nothing about eliminating it.
Sure, we spend billions of dollars trying to find a cure for all sorts of things.
But as the gambling industry knows, trying is a powerful lure to get people to play a game that they have no intention of winning.
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Perhaps Yoda had a point.
We go through elaborate scientific motions that look like progress but actually are just busywork designed to carve out our careers.
We glorify the power of the microorganism to mutate, evolve and evade all attempts to destroy it.
But what we don’t do is draw a line in the sand and hold ourselves accountable for continuing to allow millions of people to be killed by something we have the power to destroy.
So the question is: Why are we still putting up with Malaria?
The assumption is that we’re being forced to because we have no choice.
But if that assumption were proven to be false, then the truth behind our tolerance for malaria…is because it is of some benefit to us.
It’s a useful tool for controlling and destabilising millions of certain people groups.
The pursuit of a cure for malaria is worth more money than the deployment of a cure.
Malaria is a source of employment and revenue for millions of people.
Malaria research is a guaranteed cash cow for many companies.
Having people to help makes us feel better about ourselves.
If we cure Malaria, then what will we be left to do.
Our reputations and careers have been built for decades on fighting malaria. If we knock it out in the first round we’ll have to face the scary prospect of reinventing who we are.
We’re afraid of not being in charge if we allow “those people” to be empowered and come up from under the bondage of that disease.
These are questions that we Medics aren’t trained to ask.
But if we’ll be brave enough to ask different and difficult questions…And bold enough to respond to the answers we get…then we’ll discover the joy of annihilating problems that are impacting the lives of generations.
Btw, if you take out the word Malaria from this post and insert any other problem that we – or you personally – are tolerating, the same arguments hold true.
Remember, you can’t change what you choose to tolerate.

Next month, Brexit will officially be in force.

And when that happens, many of the doom-and-gloom projections will suddenly become a present reality.

Border access. The 236 daily truckloads of fruit and veg to the UK. Access to Interpol. The NHS supply chain of vital medicines.

But there’s at least one thing you don’t need to be worried about.

Accessing your Facebook account.

Barring a glitch at Facebook HQ, chances are excellent that you will still be able to check your newsfeed, post a story to your sister in Munich, tune into a Facebook Live broadcast by an author from Brussels and argue on Facebook Messenger with fellow GoT fanatics.

None of that will change at all…and that’s hugely important.

Because if we can count on being able to access Facebook, then is it possible that we can use this constant as a tool for stabilising other areas of lives post-Brexit?

I think so.

You see, Facebook is simply an example of a private, non-government dependent online platform that connects people from around the world.

What if communities around the UK decided to network with each other to create their own supply chains for whatever they need?

What if Doctors throughout Great Britain and Europe decided to network across traditional lines to create their own supply chain…and then invited patients to connect with it?

“How can we turn this into a Facebook?” might be a useful question to ask about every area that seems uncertain.

Image: Forbes.com

Don’t be fooled by the little old lady and the innocent robot that’s keeping her company and helping Grandma remember her medication.

That’s the hook of this story by Jennifer Hicks about Pillo health and Orbita’s healthcare companion robots:

Because the next stage, once Pillo health and Orbita achieve threshold market penetration& are acquired by Amazon/Google/Facebook et al will be:

This Healthcare companion robot that helps you remember your medication will then be the Healthcare companion robot that PRESCRIBES your medication.

And when there is a direct connection between patients and technology that is able to administer realtime 24/7 healthcare monitoring and provide relevant treatment from its associated global supply chain…how exactly are you as a Doctor still relevant in that scenario?

Seriously, how? A serious question worth taking a minute to answer right now.

In fact, it’s one that Doctors are answering in this survey that closes within the next 2 days. (Thursday 31st January 2019, 11.45p.m UTC-11)

Tech that’s comes through the backdoor of convenience ends up kicking the complacent out through the front door of progress.

Don’t be complacent!

Thoughts? 🙂

Here’s the original story in Forbes.