7 Comments
founding

Concentrated, crystal-clear insight and accuracy. You whittle everything down to such powerful essentials. Thank you, Dr. Aaron, for the best medicine available -- The way you encourage readers to return to personal engagement and personal responsibility instead of outsourcing the entire cycle of life from birth to death to the profiteering managerialist machine -- this is a BRAVO read that encourages and trusts as deeply as it demonstrates the best of critical thinking. You couldn't call this flagship anything BUT Human Flourishing. Heartfelt gratitude for your courage and care.

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author

Thank you, Therese -- so glad you liked the piece. I've been working on a new book, "Making the Cut: The Education of a Physician and the Crisis of Medicine," which has helped me think through some of these issues. I am never sure my thinking on these questions will make sense to others, so it's great to see encouraging feedback from you and other readers.

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Sep 12Liked by Aaron Kheriaty, MD

"Life is short, the art long; opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, and judgment difficult."

"In wise hands poison is medicine. In foolish hands, medicine is poison."

Just a couple of ancient sayings that have served me pretty well thus far. I'm 88.

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Sep 11Liked by Aaron Kheriaty, MD

Mathematically the number of possible combinations of four or five proscription drugs from the universe of all drugs available is huge. It is doubtful that many of these combinations have been evaluated for safety. This alone ought to concern those who seem who overly rely on their Walgreen and CVS visits. I can't help but believe that huge amount of television advertising for drugs is contributing factor in poor health outcomes.

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Sep 14Liked by Aaron Kheriaty, MD

Beautifully written.

It is so insane to me that the most grounded, balanced opinions, like this, so many people find polarizing these days. I think I have at least one reason why. I think the more of a sense we're all on a train that we can't get off, the more actual genuine questioning about the direction that train is going that happens, the more hysterical people are going to get.

Of course, it's not actually about the questions. It's about the fact that people even have to think about it at all. Folks just cannot handle the cognitive dissonance at this point.

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author

Yes, I think you are exactly right.

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Well said! I feel the patient/physician relationship should be one of collaboration. The most important one being that of the primary care physician and the patient. I find that specialists are much less likely to collaborate and more likely to dictate. Unfortunately, at this point in our medical system my husband and I are assigned a PA as our primary care provider. Whenever anything that relates to a new condition occurs, we are elderly, we are sent off to a specialist. Somehow this system must change.

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