I just have one big nagging concern keeping me from fully committing to the program. I want to help people, but I feel that the western allopathic way of surgery/drugs is often very harmful (although sometimes needed in cases of trauma etc).
Does pushing drugs for the giant pharmaceuticals bother anyone out there in the nurse world? I just don't know if I could live with myself doing it all day when I know that many problems could be solved simply by diet change etc.
You are confusing my disdain for the term and what it implies about nurses and nursing with my political knowledge and leanings. Please don't be so presumptuous.
Sorry, Suesquatch - I didn't mean to presume any political leanings. It's just that I do, however, presume that the motives for hastily approved drugs and companies such as Haliburton and Blackwater are driven by profit, often to the exclusion of morality. As a commercial once said, "All aspirins alike." None of these companies manufacture cigarettes, either, yet they share with the big tobacco companies the same moral ethos, or lack thereof. It's not a political issue so much as a question of corporate irresponsibility. They all have blood on their hands.
See, you nailed a lot of it: how litigious we've become. How much of our work as nurses is to cover our rears? TOO much!
I certainly believe we whould all take better care of ourselves. But, for many reasons, we don't. Right now I'm quite overweight, one pound under official obesity for my height and gender. I know how to lose weight. I exercise regularly. I'm a nurse, for crying out loud. But do I back away from the buffet? Noooo. I tell myself that that third plate is melon and therefore healthy.
Now, I'm not taking Alli, either, but were my doc willing to prescribe a little Ritalin I can't say I'd turn it down.
Suesquatch - 'nuther thing - I find coffee to work as well as ritalin any day. Yeah, I was a little miffed about the doctor giving me antibiotics I didn't need. Then a nurse friend "reframed" the situation to see it from his position: What if I did, after all, have Lyme? That said, sometimes the customer knows best. I KNEW I hadn't been bitten by a tick (and boy, do I know my ticks because I live in a heavily wooded town.) But he didn't know my reasons for being so sure. All told, we are responsible for our own health, as well as being informed when we reach for that greasy chocolate doughnut or drive without our seatbelt on. A few clinicals in an ER cured me of the latter! But seriously, speaking of Alli, etc., my own experience tells me that getting in the habit of lots of exercise works far better than shutting down our metabolisms by starving ourselves to death. So eat that melon and take the stairs! My husband eats, conservatively speaking about four times as much as me, and never gains a pound. It's laughable that we're supposed to check with our docs about starting an exercise program. We should check with them about not having one.
Interesting thread, indeed! I don't know if I entirely agree with teeituptom, because there are certainly many careers within the specialty of nursing that you could do without feeling like a pharmaceutical vending machine. Sure, if you worked in med-surg, you might feel like a big part of your job is serving up scores of drugs to people. After all, you have to be pretty sick these days to be in a hospital, and these are the people who may take ten or fifteen different drugs. But I don't think that being a nurse requires one to endorse the flagrant over-medication that goes on in our society. I think homeopathy isn't exactly an "evidence based" science. I'm no expert, but from what I understand, there isn't a whole of lot research that backs its philosophy. Moreover, homeopathy involves countless drugs. The difference is you take them in extremely small quantities.
There is plenty of room in nursing, and medicine in general, for people who believe one should promote health by non-drug routes as much as possible. This is especially true in psych - there's lots of evidence to suggest that an exercise program will treat depression even better than SSRIs. As well, heart disease, diabetes, you name it, they all can be helped by lifestyle changes. At the same time, if I had high blood pressure, hand over those meds to me! Obviously drugs save lives. What would we do without antibiotics? On the other hand, mds are too quick with the prescription pad:
Here's an example: I recently had a doc look at a bite I had that I was 100 percent certain was a flea bite because I saw the sucker. Because I'm slightly allergic, he was convinced it was Lyme and sent me packing with a script for massive antibiotics, which I didn't take. Why should I make myself even more resistant to antiobiotics when I don't need them? The md felt obliged to order the antiobiotics so I couldn't sue him later if I did have Lyme, and I was obliged not to take the pills to take care of myself, knowing full well I didn't have a deer tick bite. The lab test came back negative, which didn't surprise me.
Diahni
You try and tell some of these people with depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia etc. That they can do just as well with exercise and diet. Thats far worse than forgetting to put the bathroom seat up before going, or forgetting to put it back down. WWIII
Suesquatch - 'nuther thing - I find coffee to work as well as ritalin any day. Yeah, I was a little miffed about the doctor giving me antibiotics I didn't need. Then a nurse friend "reframed" the situation to see it from his position: What if I did, after all, have Lyme? That said, sometimes the customer knows best. I KNEW I hadn't been bitten by a tick (and boy, do I know my ticks because I live in a heavily wooded town.) But he didn't know my reasons for being so sure. All told, we are responsible for our own health, as well as being informed when we reach for that greasy chocolate doughnut or drive without our seatbelt on. A few clinicals in an ER cured me of the latter! But seriously, speaking of Alli, etc., my own experience tells me that getting in the habit of lots of exercise works far better than shutting down our metabolisms by starving ourselves to death. So eat that melon and take the stairs! My husband eats, conservatively speaking about four times as much as me, and never gains a pound. It's laughable that we're supposed to check with our docs about starting an exercise program. We should check with them about not having one.
If you were 100% sure that you SAW yourself get bitten by a flea and not a tick, why didn't you share this information with the doctor??? When a physician is only given half the story, he/she has to consider all the possibilities, and, without knowing what you knew, a tick bite was certainly a possibility. Perhaps his/her medical reccommendations would have been more appropriate for a flea bite if you had actually shared the fact that you saw yourself being bitten by a flea.....
I wonder how many patients taking small pharmacies Q Day are seeing multiple doctors. My Grandmother used to see 2 PCPs, plus specialists. Finally, one of her PCPs told her she had to pick one and drop the other (which I thought was real good advice). She still took numerous meds, but at least he knew which ones she was taking.
Still, as one of those PCPs--the one she dropped--summarized her situation: She's just too darned old. At that time, at least, she was still actively interested in continuing to get older, but that is a problem we can't blame on "The Man." We're all getting older, and a lot of us are having health problems as a result. If we were prudent enough to die at 70, we'd save a bundle on meds. And, of course, without meds, a lot of us probably would die by 70 (or so).
It's probably true that demand for some meds goes up when they are advertised. A lot of that demand may be inappropriate, but I'm sure there are instances where a patient sees an ad and discusses with his physician whether it might be helpful. That seems like a good thing, whether or not the med is ultimately prescribed. Likewise, those drug reps don't just bring us pens. They bring us info on how and when their meds should be given. The Plavix Lady, for example, spoke of several examples where clodidogrel was contra-indicated or not proven effective, as well as ones where evidence showed it was useful.
If you're looking for conspiracies, I'd like to know just whose idea it was to have the Summer of Love when I was 11--old enough to know what was going on, but not old enough to get in on it.
keeping me from fully committing to the program. I want to help people, but I feel that the western allopathic way of surgery/drugs is often very harmful (although sometimes needed in cases of trauma etc). 
Diahni
627 Posts
Sorry, Suesquatch - I didn't mean to presume any political leanings. It's just that I do, however, presume that the motives for hastily approved drugs and companies such as Haliburton and Blackwater are driven by profit, often to the exclusion of morality. As a commercial once said, "All aspirins alike." None of these companies manufacture cigarettes, either, yet they share with the big tobacco companies the same moral ethos, or lack thereof. It's not a political issue so much as a question of corporate irresponsibility. They all have blood on their hands.