why firemen make the best doctors!

By Dr. Scott Rosenthal

When Linda McCartney died of breast cancer, USA Today asked Fran DuRocher, M.D. to comment on her death. She said: “Breast cancer after all is a disease that affects healthy people. That’s why everybody is so surprised when they get it.”1 The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published an article titled: “Stroke In A Healthy 46-Year-Old Man.”2 Is it possible that Dr. Fran DuRocher, the American Medical Association, and most Americans are confused by what it is to be healthy compared to just not having any symptoms?

Does the belief that you can be healthy and have cancer or a stroke make sense? Perhaps what Fran DuRocher meant was that Linda McCartney always felt fine and did not appear sick? But why would a healthy person, if they were in fact “healthy,” have anything? Despite all of today’s advanced technology and examination procedures, many cancers and cardiovascular conditions go undetected. Pain and other outward signs do have significant meaning, but the absence of such sensations creates a false sense of reality.

Why do we hold such beliefs? Who taught us? Did our doctor teach us? Our parents? TV? In any case, our society has this paradigm, and we are conditioned to accept it. A simple test proves this point. If you are able to complete the below slogans, then you have been conditioned.

  • Plop, Plop, fizz, fizz _____________________________________.
  • I have a headache and ______________________ is written all over it.
  • How do you spell relief __________________________________.

Selling the treatment of symptoms is profitable, and it is likely that Madison Avenue, in order to create huge revenues for the medical/pharmaceutical industry, is partially responsible for America’s predicament. Of greater importance than pointing fingers, America either needs to change or continue to be surprised when the “healthy” become sick from one day to the next! Interpreting health as not having present outward symptoms is like viewing the loud ringing fire alarm (the symptom) as the problem and not the fire. If the alarm fails to sound, does this mean that there is no fire?

What is health? Many experts believe that it is having a temperature of 98.6 degrees, blood pressure of 120/80, a daily bowel movement not requiring one to sit and read “War and Peace” to finish, looking good, having no sniffles, and the absence of any aches and pains. In chiropractic, we believe that health is more than just average temperatures, blood chemistries and feeling no symptoms. Health involves optimized function and performance, reaching one’s fullest potential and having a high sense of general wellbeing. This view is shared by most other holistic health sciences and has become well accepted by others. The World Health Organization utilizes the following definition: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The Vatican (Pope John Paul) states: "Health is a dynamic tension towards physical, mental, social and spiritual harmony, and not only the absence of illness, which gives man the ability to fulfill the mission which has been entrusted to him, according to the state of life in which he finds himself."

How should America change… what is a good first step toward a needed paradigm shift? We can start looking at health as more than avoiding symptoms. Dr. Steven Hoffman, a chiropractic technique educator in California, once stated that most people act as if they just want to be not sick, instead of healthy. This is like just wanting to be not poor instead of wealthy or just wanting to be not stupid instead of intelligent. If we start placing the same importance on being truly healthy as we do with being wealthy and intelligent, we are on our way!

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[1] Kelly K. Cancer kills Linda McCartney, 56. USA Today, April 20, 1998; 9D.
[2] Wityk R. Stroke In A Healthy 46-Year-Old Man. JAMA 2001;285(21):2757