Why doesn’t your doctor just tell it like it is?

Lenox Mhlanga

When you get to my age and haven’t been to see a doctor, let’s just say you are walking dead. Or you are lying about your age. Doctors become your close friends and I am not talking about him buying you a round of drinks at the pub. 

I know most men spend most of their lives ducking going to the surgery. Unlike women who are not only brave at it, but literally live on it. I read somewhere that if men were just as concerned about their health, the world would be a more crowded place.

Yes, men commit suicide by not making regular medical check-ups. We can prevent most of the ailments by being proactive about our health care. It so happened that I recently had to see the doctor. I was experiencing a pain I could not comprehend in the cardiac area. 

Let’s just say I have watched enough medical drama television series to understand what this might mean. I read somewhere that a doctor cures you with pills and then kills you with his bills. How true this adage is, to decimate my bank account when I paid that long overdue trip to my personal doc. 

I was dumbstruck by the emptiness of the waiting room. A howling wind was blowing through it. The kind that rock group Thin Lizzy sang about in the Cowboy song. Does that betray my age?

While medicine, says James Bryce, is the only profession that labours incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence, it remains one of the most lucrative professions around, outside of prostitution. 

We should amend the Hippocratic Oath to mean health care is for those who can afford it.

Back to the surgery. The receptionist was reading some huge novel that I suspected she could easily go through by the end of the day. The look on her face when she saw me sauntering was priceless. It was as if she was saying, so there is human life outside the medical chambers after all!

Many only find their way here seeking a second or third opinion after their regular inyanga (traditional doctor) would have dashed off to try his luck a gold panning in Filabusi, she quips. My doctor’s diagnosis was that having too many air pies was messing me up. One meal a day in these days of austerity for posterity was not cutting it. We are all worried about our health because we don’t want to die. But you and I know that this is an exercise in futility. Avoiding death that is. 

Of all the cures, they have found none for death. That regrettable consequence of man’s original sin won’t be reversed soon. While our trepidation of dying is comprehensible, man’s dread of pain is palpable. It explains why most men avoid clinics and hospitals until it becomes unbearable.

Just like the fact that I am terrified of needles, even for a blood test. I take comfort in the findings of Dr Vernon Coleman who revealed that at least two-thirds of all tests and investigations by doctors are uncalled for.

For example, he says that one survey showed that the routine examination of blood and urine contributes to only one percent of diagnoses made! So why do they do it? For the simple reason to allow them and their comrades at diagnostics to buy themselves houses and cars at your expense.

What really interests me is what goes on in the consulting room. I get worried when the doctor gives me the impression that they are clueless. At the end of some puzzling interview, he then scribbles a prescription in hieroglyphics.

You only discover later that he would have prescribed a painkiller that one has tonnes of back at home! Don’t we all wish doctors had a bit of clarity in their diagnoses? 

They should be downright honest and give it to us square if I had six hours to live like they do in the movies. How nice it would be if a doctor’s explanations would be as direct as they do in the movies.

Me: “I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?” Doctor: “Your heart is only good for so many beats and that’s it, don’t waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer. That’s like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap. 

Or….”

Me: “Should I reduce my alcohol intake?” 

Doctor: No, not at all. They make wine from fruit and distil brandy. That means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. They also make beer out of grain. So, bottoms up!”

Disclaimer: I do not hate doctors or the work that they do. I only detest their incredulous bills. Otherwise, we’re good.