Me and the Medical world (again)

I had another incident of medical depression, and I wasn't even sick. I had an appointment to get my eyes checked by a new and more skilled specialist at a new place. The place turned out to be six floor medical factory, very efficiently run, but huge and depressing.

The staff were mostly nice, some more than others. They shuffle hundreds of people through each day, so it can't be too personal. They lead people through the maze of hallways , with the people following obediently behind, like mules on tethers. Most of the people, of course, are sick so that isn't too uplifting. Many are old and crumbling, and them come to be taped together for another six months, or six days. It is clear that so much of our medical expenses go to constantly slapping band-aids on what is really just natural deterioration.

I went from this waiting room to that sitting area, to this little room, to that next waiting room to the next little room. I was examined by very nice people and very high-tech equipment that beeped and flashed and spit out pictures and pages of printouts.

I sat and looked at the artwork on the walls of abstract local nature. I wondered if the artist had imagined that their heartfelt emotion laden images would end up here.

I heard a woman somewhere down the hall with the worst cough I had ever heard, and she continued her straining and hacking on and on, as nurses walked with frozen smiles down the corridor. I wondered how much coming here put me in danger of being sicker than I ever have been.

After an hour of this, the very competent doctor showed me some of the pictures and told me that my status was the same as the last visit with my previous doctor. She then offered me some new, very expensive treatments that I probably don't need, but are available. I asked how much they could help and she explained very clearly that they could be an improvement, but they may not actually work and then they would have to be re-done. She couldn't predict.

I thanked everyone and went home. It took me about four hours to shake the depression. It is clear to me how much worse I would feel if I actually were sick, and how powerful the psychological aspects of illness are.

My own office is not like this. I greet all my patients myself. We talk in a cozy room, with comfortable chairs for an hour. I do not in-put everything into a computer as we talk. I listen and smile and make little jokes.

In many ways psychotherapy is not medicine in the way the medicine is practiced in America today. That is probably why there is such a demand for it, and why it works so well.