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What's Up, Doc?: An Ounce of Prevention
| Article
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13142 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1987 |
1,418 Words |
| Author
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Alexandra Greeley
Alexandra Greeley was food editor of the South China Morning
Post, Hong Kong, and staff writer for the Time-Life cooking
series "Great Meals in Minutes." |
"Give the people as much health power as they can manage," says Dr. Lowell Levin of the Yale University School of Medicine. Levin, the grandfather of the self-care movement, views all doctors and hospitals as necessary but undesirable social evils, like jails. This campaigner for greater consumer involvement in the arena of self-care impatiently ticks off what the consumer can, should - and often does - do to care for him or herself. He stresses preventing illness, understanding risk factors, managing minor aches and pains, and caring for chronic diseases at home. Annual physicals, he declares, are "a bunch of baloney."
He adds, "About 85-90 percent of all medical care in the United States is provided by ordinary people. It's self-service, when you think about what kinds of things people do for themselves daily." Self-treatment remedies include aspirin for headaches, ice packs for sprains, ointments for burns, and much more.
In reality, consumers are not abandoning their doctors. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that from 1981 to 1985 the annual number of doctor's office visits gradually increased - from 585,177,000 to 703,890,000. Current American Medical Association figures indicate a slight 2.1 percent drop in visits in 1986, hardly a stampede out the office door.
Patients are becoming more selective about when to visit the doctor, a fact that may be related to economics. The average cost of an office visit has more than doubled in the last decade, from $13.50 in 1976 to $27.81 in 1985, according to the American Medical Association.
Power is knowledge
Levin's message grates on medical nerves, but it certainly hasn't fallen on deaf consumer ears. Consumers have become more knowledgeable about what makes them tick. Self-help books, exercise videos, fitness clubs, and health-food stores proliferate. Never before has the public had such a choice of selfcare options: jogging, aerobics, biofeedback, fad diets, over-the-counter medications, home test kits - the list is endless.
And knowledge is power. "Most people aren't trying to be their own doctors," says Dr. F. Warren Tingley, president of the American Society of Internal Medicine. They tend to limit doctor visits to unusual occurrences such as prolonged illness, persistent fevers, unusual bleeding, or rapid weight loss. "People are taking more
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