Making Wise Health Decisions
“LIFE. Be In It!” This Australian slogan may seem like senseless advice at first, since most people want to live. But this catch phrase puts the onus on each person to get involved in wholesome activities if he wants to improve his health and the quality of his life.
Most persons realize that they are largely responsible for the condition of their health. Good or poor health usually does not just happen. With most of us, health is directly related to personal life-styles. “What you eat and drink today, walks and talks tomorrow,” says one advertising slogan.
Dr. Thomas Stachnik of Michigan State University observes that the sickness and death rates of Americans “are no longer related to the infectious diseases prevalent at the turn of the century; instead, they are related to chronic disorders related to our life-styles.” And what type of life-style is it that causes health-care costs to soar and that keeps hospital beds overutilized?
Dr. Anthony Moore of the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia pulls no punches when he speaks of “people who have choked the blood from their heart with cigarettes, and torn the air from their lungs; who have squandered their body through lethargy; who have been digging their own graves with gluttonous gums; whose organs have been eroded with alcohol; whose bones have been splintered by delinquent driving; whose nerves have been snapped on the rack of ambition or anxiety; whose personality has become a plague through drugs; whose kidneys have been gnawed by aspirin; and whose mind has been sludged with sedatives.”
A person may take the attitude, ‘Oh, well, we all have to go when our time comes, so why all this fuss about good health?’ But since the average life span of humans from both the Bible and the statistical view is around seventy years, wisdom dictates trying to live out that span in relatively good health.—Psalm 90:10.
So a person who chooses a sensible life-style has made a wise medical decision. All through life, it is wise to keep observing what your body needs and how it changes in its reaction to how you treat it. Are you tired or languid? Why? Is it the result of the aging process, too much activity, not enough sleep, or too much rest and not enough exercise? Are you overweight? Why? Have you been eating a balanced diet according to your health needs, or “balanced” to suit your personal preferences?
A risky life-style is not necessary in order to say that you have lived a fulfilled life.
Wise Use of Medicine and Other Forms of Treatment
Nevertheless, those who are sick may need medical care and in some cases medicine will be necessary for recovery. There are, however, suggested drugs or other therapies for almost every ailment. There is also a constant barrage of advertising designed to convince people that nonprescribed medicine, vitamins, herbs, manipulations, tonics, and so forth, are necessary for every cough, headache, pain, stomach upset, itching and suchlike. One study estimated that 90 percent of all symptoms for which people seek health care can be cured by the human body itself, without pills, vitamins, herbs, manipulation or medicines.
A recent survey in the United States showed that one out of every three persons who considered themselves to be healthy were taking nonprescribed medicine and nearly one out of every four were using prescribed drugs.
Do not think that a certain drug, vitamin, herb or treatment is harmless because you used it in the past without any apparent side effects or that you need to keep taking it as preventive medicine. As with alcohol, the longer one takes drugs or other therapies the greater the chance, later in life, of inducing side effects of overuse-related diseases. Special concern is justified in prescription medications, since examinations have established that at least two in every five patients receiving drugs prescribed by their doctors suffer from some kind of side effect!
Rather than take medicine or other health remedies just because they are available and produce no apparent side effects, it is wise to establish how effective the medicine or therapy really is. The damage it can do or the unnecessary cost may outweigh the hoped-for benefits.
Highlighting the dangers involved, a Western Australia newspaper raised the question: “How can you judge your doctor?” It then asked, “Do you get a prescription every time you [visit the doctor]? If the answer is yes,” the recommendation was, “Change your doctor.” You should not consider your visit to the doctor ineffective, therefore, if he simply gives you advice rather than prescribes a drug. This can also be said of all health practitioners who feel inclined to prescribe their favorite or money-making schemes at every visit.
A wise objective is to try to go through as much of life as possible free from pills or therapy. The number of persons who can say they live a pill-free life is becoming increasingly smaller.
Obtaining Medical Advice
“As many as two of every three patients in a family practitioner’s office don’t really need to be there,” reports USA Today. And this is likely true also of visits to chiropractors, herbalists, naturopaths and many other types of health practitioners. With the onset of some ailment, then, a person ought to analyze whether he really needs a practitioner or whether it is simply a matter of facing reality. Is the problem psychological or is it caused by emotional stress? If so, you may be able to handle it, perhaps with the aid of a counselor. Are you really sick, or well, but worried about some personal problem? Is the sickness something the practitioner may be able to cure or is it just a common cold, cough or virus that must take its natural course? Is it something that can be curtailed or reversed, or should it be endured as a result of old age?
Whether you seek the services of a qualified health expert or not, it is wise to try to get better informed as to the sickness, what possibly caused it and ways it can be treated. Having this knowledge may convince you that many times a visit to the doctor or health therapist is not necessary. Or when discussing your problem with you, your knowledge may greatly assist them in helping to restore your health. But when speaking to your doctor express yourself with proper respect for his experience and knowledge, otherwise your view may not be appreciated.
Should a second opinion be obtained even though one is reasonably certain the diagnosis is right? That depends on the nature of the illness and other factors. But at times there is good reason for doing so when surgery is involved, when long-term therapy is suggested, or in cases of serious illness. Where second-opinion programs are being carried out, operations are being drastically reduced.
Dr. Goldstein, lecturer in preventive medicine at Sydney University, speaks of how people are taking surgery too lightly. A common attitude seems to be, “If in doubt, rip it out.”
While the doctor or health practitioner is in a privileged position and has the capacity for specialized judgment, he is not God. David Maddison of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Newcastle in Australia, comments: “One cannot ignore the mounting evidence showing the number of times that experts have been wildly wrong, often in directions which have been of literally world-shattering significance. . . . In the medical profession there is a great deal to suggest that the day of the God/doctor is ending—the era is rapidly passing when the patient needed the physician so badly, or believed that he did, that he ascribed to him knowledge and authority beyond what he actually deserved.”
So the advice of another surgeon or that of a diagnostic physician who will not gain financially from his decision may be wise at times, especially before allowing someone to wheel you off to the operating room to do nonemergency surgery.
Wise Moral Decisions
Although the doctor may be sincerely committed to health care, the moral dignity of the patient is a factor not to be overlooked. Abortions or blood transfusions may be legal and acceptable to the doctor but considered morally wrong by the patient, especially in the case of Bible-educated Christians.—Exodus 21:22-25; Acts 15:28, 29.
Whether the decision is moral or not is determined by several factors, involving balance and good judgment. Edward Keyserlingk, lawyer and professor at Carleton University and coordinator of the Law Reform Commission of Canada, says that “ethics, medicine, theology and law” are all entwined in moral decisions. When there is a conflict, however, which factor do you personally believe should receive the lesser consideration? As a general maxim he favors that law should play a limited, last-resort role in them.
Dr. Robert Dickman of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, says: “How patients’ moral (and/or religious) values influence their perception of health and illness and their expectations of medicine seem to be legitimate concerns of the family physician.”
Even doctors face making difficult moral decisions at times. A government may legalize marijuana, abortion or the advertising of tobacco to promote smoking. Yet many doctors object on moral grounds.
Jim Garner, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says: “The essential principle surely is that if a person or an organization thinks some action is wrong, he or it has an absolute right to say so, irrespective of whether that action is lawful . . . We have the duty to ourselves to make up our own mind about morals; as a citizen each of us should conform to the law, but the law does not override morality.”—Italics ours.
The practice of medicine has no built-in morality. What is morally right has to be decided by the adult patient or, where dependent children are involved, by the family head. And such decisions should be made out of deep respect and love for the superior laws of Jehovah God.—Psalm 119:97.
Since the Bible’s mandate is clear, that “men ought to give their wives the love they naturally have for their own bodies,” even if a husband does not fully understand his wife’s feminine ailments, he should take an active interest and be concerned as to the doctors or practitioners his wife visits and the treatment they prescribe. He should never abdicate this responsibility as an embarrassment to his masculinity and leave the decisions for his wife and the doctor (usually another man) to make. The “one flesh” marriage partnership requires deep and loving concern for the wife.—Ephesians 5:28, 31, Phillips.
When making medical decisions, then, the individual patient and the family head bear the primary responsibility. Of course, they may seek the advice of close relatives or cooperative doctors and surgeons where difficult decisions need to be made. But, above all, it is the course of wisdom to show concern for what is morally acceptable to Jehovah God. His priorities are ultimately binding on all persons, whether they be practitioner or patient.
[Blurb on page 12]
“What you eat and drink today, walks and talks tomorrow”
[Blurb on page 13]
“As many as two of every three patients in a family practitioner’s office don’t really need to be there”
[Blurb on page 14]
“In the medical profession there is a great deal to suggest that the day of the God/doctor is ending”
[Box on page 15]
DO YOU . . .
• Gorge yourself with food?
• Smoke tobacco?
• Down large amounts of alcohol?
• Avoid strenuous physical activity?
• Take drugs regularly?
THEN YOU ARE AN ABUSER OF YOUR HEALTH
SHOULD YOU . . .
• Visit the doctor? or Help yourself?
• Take drugs? or Alter your life-style?
• Have an operation? or Seek alternative treatment?
• Do what is legally permitted? or Do what pleases God?
WHO SHOULD MAKE THE FINAL DECISION?