My Thoughts About Statins Prescribed to Prevent Heart Attacks – by Gary Smolker

Struggle

I’ve struggled for more that three years trying to decide whether I should take the “recommended” dosage of a statin medicine to prevent having a heart attack.

Various of my friends have struggled with the same question.

Below is a copy of a string of emails between me (Gary Smolker) and my good friend Paul Cook about whether he or I should take a statin prescribed by our physicians.

I have struggled with that questions for years because I never received a satisfactory answer to my question why should I take a statin, even though I’ve asked many physicians for their answer and have read more than ten books on diet, exercise, life style/healthy living in terms of what to do to prevent heart attacks/heart disease/diabetes, etc. etc.

The Unanswered Questions

I would like to know how much longer I would live if I took the recommended dosage.

I would also like to know what harmful/distasteful side effects would I experience if I took the recommended dosage.

What would be my quality of life over time if I took the recommended dosage vs. if I don’t take the recommended dosage?

My Personal Belief About Longevity

The principle which I used to make my decision about what dosage of statin, if any, to take was based on the following personal belief and principle.

“Its not the years in your life that counts its the life in your years.”  – Abraham Lincoln

My Personal Belief About Diet

Your diet consists of more than the food you eat.  It’s also the books you read, the shows you watch, the people you associate with, the people you are surrounded by, the people you meet, the places you see, the things you do, what you think about, your total environment.  Your “diet” also consists of what you drink and the air you breathe (i.e. second hand smoke from tobacco products, etc.), and especially including the water you drink.

My people believe the water they drink is poisoned (Flint, Michigan), the air they breathe is poisoned (Beijing) and food we all eat causes medical problems, including deformed babies, drug addicted babies, and miscarriages.

According to a recently published WHO (World Health Organization) Report, exposure to polluted environments is associated with more than one in four deaths among children under the age of five.  Research finds that some 1.7 million children’s death across the globe are attributable to environmental hazards such as exposure to contaminated water, air pollution, and other unsanitary conditions.

Exposure to hazardous chemicals through air, food and products used in every day life is also associated with hindered brain development in children.

Wellness

In my opinion:

• The poorest man is not the man without a penny.  It’s the man without a dream, a man without a purpose.
• Work without passion is slavery.
• There are seven days a week and “someday” isn’t one of them.
• An ambitious person working  9 to 5 their entire life is like a lion choosing to be caged at the zoo.
• HEALTHY LIVING is a giant multidimensional topic.

Drinking And Wellbeing

I’ve read that there are thirteen minerals that are essential for human life and all of them can be found in wine.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Is that true?  I don’t know. I would like to think so.

Hard driving stressed-out men, imagine this situation: It’s overcast today,  You chill by the fire with a pair of cocktails for yourself and your lady.  You each each have the following drink in your hand:  Anejo tequila, washed in browned butter, in a cup of coffee, garnished with Netflix and a warm blanket.

Recipe:

• 1 oz browned butter washed Gran Centenario Anejo
• .75 oz Borghetti coffee liqueur
• .25 oz Cynar 70
• Barspoon 2:1 demerara – 3 oz hot coffee
• Top with hand-whipped cinnamon cream

Don’t Just Exist.  Glow.

Does the woman in the picture below look like she is having a good time?

She is totally focused on her work.

Does the woman in the photo below look like she is going to have a good time?

Have A Good Time.

Make sure you have a good time.

Laugh a lot.

Laughter is good medicine.

My Personal Belief About Mistakes

Creative people don’t make mistakes.  They make discoveries.

Creativity is contagious.  Pass it along.

Personal Correspondence

Below is a copy of recent personal correspondence between myself (Gary Smolker) and one of my friends (Paul Cook) about taking stains to prevent heart attacks/heart disease.

The last [most recent] piece of correspondence is at the top, the first piece of correspondence is at the bottom of the string of email correspondence below.

Neither Paul Cook not I are/is a physician.

Neither one of us has any medical training.

Both of us have declined to take a dosage of a statin drug that we have been told/advised that we should take in order to prevent having a heart attack.

Thoughts for the Day

Consider the following before reading the correspondence below between Paul and me.

• Science is not decided by vote.  There is no consensus, there is only our best current understanding.
• If the “experts” had it right we would be living on a “flat Earth” around which the Universe revolves praying to Zeus for our lives.
• The practice of medicine today is better than it was fifty years ago and in fifty years from now the practice of medicine will be better than it is today.
• TODAY: More people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined.
• TODAY: The average human is far more likely to die from binging at McDonald’s than from drought, Ebola, or an aL-Qaeda attack.
• With respect to taking steps to have a high quality life, prevent heart attacks, etc we are dealing with (a) lots of uncertainty, (b) incomplete information, (c) a very complex situation, and (d) lack of significant and/or meaningful understanding of physical, biological, biochemical, and physiological processes and in particular we have an almost complete lack understanding of brain function brain health brain chemistry and cognitive processes.
• Risk changes as we get older.
• Much to my astonishment I read that taking statins can lower testosterone (in effect eliminate/lower sex drive and sex function), destroy cognitive function (make it more difficult to process information and to think, destroy short term memory, destroy long term memory), increase the chance of having Alzheimer’s disease, increase the chance of having diabetes, and speed up the aging process.  I don’t know if any of that is true (i.e., if there is any correlation between taking a statin and losing sex drive, or getting Alzheimer’s disease or if any of those dreadful potential side effects would happen to me if I took the recommended dosage of statin, now or when I became older (later)).

 

---

 

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Paul,

Thank you for the vote of approval and confidence in my point of view.

According to David B. Augus, M.D., a pioneering cancer doctor and researcher  [he is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California and heads USC’s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine), the top ten causes of death in the United States for the 2010 calendar year according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expressed as deaths in the United States for the 2010 calendar year were:

1. Heart disease: 597,689 deaths
2. Cancer: 574,4743
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
4. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476 deaths
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859 deaths
6. Alzheimer’s disease: 83,494 deaths
7. Diabetes: 69,071 deaths
8. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476 deaths
9. Influenza and pneumonia: 50,097 deaths
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364 deaths

Assuming you are going to eventually die, if you had a choice of cause of death which cause of death would/do you prefer?

For example: Do you prefer to die of heart disease or cancer?

In general, chances are if you don’t die from heart disease, you most likely will die from (1) cancer, or (2) chronic lower respiratory disease, or (3) stroke or (4) an accident/unintentional injury, or (5) Alzheimer’s disease, or (6) diabetes, or something else listed above.

Do you have any idea what it would be like to die from a heart attack or from cancer?

By the way, statistics are valuable  for understanding a population as a whole, but much less valuable for predicting an individual.

Gary

—–Original Message—–
From: Paul Cook
To: Gary Smoker <gsmolker@aol.com>
Cc: Many
Sent: Sat, Mar 4, 2017 6:18 am
Subject: Re: Context: The Missing Ingredient

Gary,

You are Exactly right!

Paul

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

——– Original message ——–

From: Gary Smoker <gsmolker@aol.com>

Date: 3/4/17 2:51 AM (GMT-08:00)

To: Paul Cook

Cc: Many

Subject: Re: Context: The Missing Ingredient

Paul

What meaningless garbage.

What is the “risk?”  How does (percentage) risk change over time?

What is the probability you personally would lower the “risk”?

How much longer can you personally expect to live without having a heart attack or strike if you take one dosage vs another dose or none whatsoever?

The problem with living longer is that you live longer at the end of your life at a time you might be in a dreadful physical and/or mental state.

You might be extending your life while you are an immobile deaf and blind person who can barely breath, and at a time on your life when you pee and shit in your pants all the time and are on dialysis and your body is in constant pain

It would be much better to extend your life when you are young, fully functional and at the top of your physical and mental game.

Gary

Sent from my iPhone

Gary S. Smolker

On Mar 3, 2017, at 4:09 PM, Paul Cook  wrote:

Thanks Gary,

I appreciate your input! I was told that if I took x mg of Statin I would lower the risk of stroke and or heart attack some exact %…. not necessarily so. But that’s what his computer said!

Paul

On March 3, 2017 at 3:50 PM Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com> wrote:

FYI—–Original Message—–
From: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.com>
To: Mayer
Cc: Many
Sent: Fri, Mar 3, 2017 3:48 pm
Subject: Context: The Missing Ingredient

Mayer,My criticism of advice regarding what to eat and do to accomplish the goal of preventing heart attacks and other physical, mental and medical disasters is that RAW DATA is only useful when we put it in context.

The advice given is usually too general or too wrong headed or on mere speculation.

ALWAYS medical advice given to me regarding taking statins has never been a full disclosure of what is known of practical significance.

Compounding the problem the public on the whole would be like swine being fed pearls if anyone would attempt to provide HONEST FULL DISCLOSURE of the plus and minus and percent chance of achieving various results.

Too little is known for any MD to be able to say with a high degree of certainty if you take a statin of any particular dose you will live a specific amount of time longer.

Best regards,

Gary

—–Original Message—–
From: Mayer
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Sent: Mon, Feb 20, 2017 6:19 pm
Subject: Fwd: Home Remedies That Work (and Some That Don’t)

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: WebMD <health@messages.webmd.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 8:38 AM
Subject: Home Remedies That Work (and Some That Don’t)
To: Mayerblah blah

Copyright © 2017 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved

BEING BRILLIANT IS NOT EASY — by Gary S. Smolker

To my intellectually gifted, high energy, intense and passionately curious blog readers:

Below are a few of my comments about Robin Williams:

• Robin Williams was among the smartest and wisest of men.
• His comedic genius came from the highest form of intelligence man is capable of achieving.
• I believe he committed suicide because he was extremely lonely and realized he couldn’t be his “real self.”

I felt pain when I read the quote from “The Little Prince” (about looking up at the stars) that Robin Williams sent to his daughter Zelda.

Mind and Soul

Having good conversations with passionately curious, intense, high energy, intellectually gifted individuals is one of my favorite pleasures.  Doing so soothes my soul.

I believe if Robbin Williams had been able to continuously have brilliant high energy inspiring two way conversations with friends he would not have committed suicide.

The simple pleasure of watching movies that have messages that make me think and/or provide me with information that helps me better understand things nourishes my soul and keeps me sane.

I love watching movies that make people think and compel people to discuss those movies with me.

Talking to people about good movies, good books, things happening in their lives and current events that are meaningful to me soothes my mind.

I hope Robbin Williams was able to enjoy the simple pleasures of discussing movies and books with friends, but I am afraid he was so imaginative, so creative and so deeply intellectually gifted that such simple pleasures were not often, if at all, available to him.

 

Recent Discussions About How the Mind Works

I love learning.

I am sure Robbin Williams loved learning too.

I hope he had friends to learn with.

Luckily I do.

One of my good friends, Bob Balocca recently shared with me his “take-away” from discussions he recently had on “how the mind works” with two of his other friends.

As a result of his meeting with those two friends, Bob and I have spent almost all of our recent time together talking about (1) how the mind works, (2) what people think they know, and (4) how people think.

That has given me great pleasure.

Bob is a great observer and a great photographer.

I agree with what Emile Zola said about taking a photograph.

“In my view, you cannot say that you have truly seen something if you have not taken a photograph revealing a whole host of details that could not otherwise be observed.”  Emile Zola (1840 – 1902)

Bob has been a photography buff (aficionado) for more than thirty years.

Perhaps that is why he is a great observer.

Bob is also a scholar of the history of ideas and the founder of a successful computer software company.

Another one of my good friends, Saeed Yadegar recently spent an entire weekend – a non-stop weekend – discussing how physicians think and how physicians practice medicine with me.

My recent non-stop weekend of discussions with Saeed took place while we were taking photographs in the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons in Arizona.

The Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons in Arizona are the spiritual heart of the Navajo Nation, and are considered by many people all over the world to be one of the wonders of the world.

Saeed is a radiologist.

In addition to practicing radiology, Saeed manages a department of radiologists, and serves as an Executive/ Director/Manager of a moderately large medical group.

Like my friend Bob, Saeed has been a photography buff for more than thirty years.

Saeed, speaks and understands several languages, is very interested in how people think and keeps track of the mindsets of people all over the world.

He also keeps track of the advancement of technological developments all over the world.

During our non-stop weekend of discussions, of particular interest to me was Saeed’s description of what happens to a medical student’s mind in the process of learning how to practice medicine and then what happens to that physician’s mind during the day-to-day practice of medicine.

During our weekend of discussions, Saeed spent a lot of time listening to me vent about why I am fed up how the medical profession practices non-emergency medicine.

Saeed and Bob both have deep scientific and philosophical educational backgrounds, are passionate about photography and obsessively seek to learn the truth.

They are both like the famous photographer Alfred Stieglitz who famously said: “Photography is my passion.  The search for truth is my obsession.”  Alfred Stieglitz (1864 – 1946)

Both Saeed and Bob are aggressive ambitious people, both have good people skills and both are repositories of interesting facts and are great teachers.

Take Away from Discussing “Consciousness” in Ouray, Colorado

Ouray, Colorado is in the “Rocky Mountains.”

Ouray is so beautiful it is called “the Switzerland of the Rockies.”

Ann Ryan wrote “Atlas Shrugged” while living in Ouray, Colorado.

In preparation for their meeting to discuss “consciousness” in Ouray, Bob and his two of his two academic friends read two books – “Physics and Philosophy – the Revolution in Modern Science” by Werner Heisenberg and “How We Know” by Harry Binswanger. Consciousness

The following, according to Bob, is Bob’s take away from his weekend of discussions about consciousness with his two friends:

• “Consciousness” is the main tool of survival.  All forms of consciousness are related to survival.
• All animals exist at a “perceptual level of consciousness”: animals perceive and then react to what they perceive.
• Humans can exist at a “higher level of consciousness”: Humans may operate at a “conceptual level of consciousness.”
• Humans have the capacity  “conceive” and “to conceptualize”, which is an ability to derive knowledge from perception.  This is one of the “abilities” that differentiates humans from all other living things.
• Making use of perceptions is called “thinking.”
• Forming a “concept” and integrating it into a bank of knowledge requires work.
• Most people exist at a perceptual level equivalent to that of a programed robot.
• The most productive and highest level of work is performed by people who think and work at a highly developed conceptual level.  Those people are “critical thinkers.”

Medical Training

During his discussions with me,  Saeed explained that

• Medical training consists of learning facts and procedures.
• Physicians are required to follow a “standard of care.”
• Physicians are not required to understand whether or not the “standard of care” they follow or advice they give and/or the drugs they prescribe make sense.
• They are not required to follow/track what happens to their patients’ health after their patients follow their advice by taking various pills they prescribe.  As a result, they do not conduct this type of very basic organized systematic clinical research record keeping.
• Preventative care/gatekeeper physicians (i.e., internists) are not “investigators”, they are practitioners.
• They can be thought of as one would think of computers that have been loaded with an operating system and software applications.
• As physicians, they are required by hospitals they work at, by their licensing board and by legal liability laws to follow published standards of care.
• General practitioners (gate-keeper physicians) are not required to scientifically keep track of the clinical results achieved by their patients with respect to whether medical objectives (i.e. prevention of heart attacks, reversal of dementia, etc. etc.) were achieved.

When I complained to Saeed that the standard procedure of prescribing statin drugs to lower cholesterol appears to me not to be based on good science, Saeed responded: That is the standard of care doctors are required to follow; doctors could be sued if they did not prescribe a cholesterol lowering drug to a patient who had “high” cholesterol if such a patient subsequently had a heart attack.  In other words, since it is the standard of care to do so, as a matter of “defensive medicine” doctors will prescribe such medication rather than evaluating or doing an experiment or using the clinical information of their patients which is at their finger tip to determine whether or not taking that medicine makes sense.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hac

I have recently become very skeptical of how medicine is conventionally practiced as a result of noticing people who followed their doctors advice having heart attacks, doctors being uncritical and lacking knowledge about dietary standards and the medical properties of food, and not having a complete view of how to prevent heart attacks or how to live a healthy life.

In ancient Roman times it was realized that correlation does not equal/does not prove causation.

The proposition, “It follows this therefore it was caused by that – post hoc ergo propter hac”  is faulty logic.

Yet when I asked doctors who claimed they practiced “evidence based medicine” why they were prescribing various medicines, it turned out they had not independently evaluated the test given or the test results reported upon which their drug prescribing (some would say drug pushing) medical practices are based and that they were prescribing drugs because they had been taught to prescribe those drugs or had been “without critically thinking” been talked into prescribing those drugs.

I did exam and evaluate the experiments upon which the drug prescribing protocols are based.

Based upon my examination it appeared to me and I concluded, and it has recently been noticed by the National Institute of Health,  that the medical profession is proceeding on a faulty logical basis – due to not knowing how to design an experiment or how to interpret data – when prescribing drugs.

That worries me because I take a statin to lower my cholesterol, but I am not convinced that in my case taking a statin is a good idea.

I am worried that taking a statin will become the number one influence in my life by causing me – over time – to lose my mental acuity.

Many heart attack patients who have followed their physician’s advice (taken the appropriate cholesterol lowering drugs/pills, exercised, etc) are shocked when they have a heart attack.

I am one of that legion of people.

Based on my own personal research, over a two year period, I have come to the following conclusions:

There are compelling health benefits to be derived from having a “healthy life style”, consisting of:

1. eating/following a “healthy” diet,
2. getting a good night’s sleep,
3. keeping active,
4. avoiding stress, and
5. properly dealing with stress.

I spent two years performing independent research on (a) how to prevent and reverse health disease, (b) how to avoid having diabetes, (c) how to increase brain function and to avoid dementia, (i.e. how to avoid losing cognitive abilities) before coming to those “life style” health benefit conclusions.

NOTE: “Reality” is often defined not by the facts but by beliefs.

As a result, one person’s reality is often perceived to be very different from another’s.

Stress, Depression, Use of Drugs and Suicidal Tendencies in Gifted Individuals

I am very upset that Robin Williams committed suicide.

I don’t buy the theory that Robin Williams had “inner demons.”

Gifted individuals have “high energy” and have superior intelligence.  This often results in them experiencing the world in a manner that creates social and emotional issues for them.

For example, they often have difficulties relating to or communicating with their peers.

These differences can and often do result in them becoming socially isolated.

In that man is a social animal, being socially isolated can be very depressing which can lead to a gifted individual not caring whether he lives or dies and when such an individual is in great emotional pain that emotional  pain may lead to suicidal tendencies.

I have the following ideas, opinions and comments on how Robbin Williams’ mental condition led to his suicide:

• Humor is a disguised form of wisdom that comes from having a painful experience.
• Being a comedian requires one to always be “on.”
• Always being “on” (exuding high energy) is draining.
• Robbin Williams realized that if taking pills to calm himself “down” (i.e. which he understood was necessary to “dull” pain which is one of the markers of  depression) resulted in calming him down he would no longer be able to be an exceptionally mentally alert and highly talented person.
• Taking anti-depression pills would make him and made it “impossible” for him to be “on.” He realized if he could not be “on” all the time it would be impossible for him to continue being the exceptionally witty sharp and amazing comedian and actor that he is.
• He brilliantly recognized that he was in an inescapable situation.  He had to decide which of  two awful conditions to spend the rest of his life – (a) being a depressed/unhappy/socially isolated comedian, or (b) being a brain dull nebbish.
• He recognized that he was in a “no-win” impossibly painful situation which made his life not worth living.
• If realized if he continued to take anti-depressant pills he would/could not be who he “is.”
• He understood that if he continued to take anti-depressant pills he could/would no longer continue to be himself.
• If he took anti-depression drugs he would be a “nebbish” and he “rationally” decided that is not who he was/is or what he wanted to be.
• Robin Williams was not mentally unstable.
• Robin Williams had superior super high reasoning power.
• Robin Williams was mentally brilliant.
• Robin Williams was so sensitive, that he was TOO aware of being different.
• Robbin Williams was so brilliant that he realized that as a result of his unique brilliance he was living a “one-of-a-kind-life” with would always result in him feeling he was  “alone.”
• Robbin Williams realized he was like “the swan who thought he was an ugly duckling while living with ducks that didn’t realize he was a swan until he saw another swan” except for the fact he was not going to find another Robin Williams, people of similar mental giftedness, to hang out with.
• Consider his mental agility, the quickness of his brain, as demonstrated in the variety of roles he so brilliantly/dazzlingly performed in “Mork & Mindy”, “Good Morning Vietnam”, “Good Will Hunting”, “Dead Poets Society”, “Mrs. Doubtfire”, “Hook”, “The Fisher King”, “Aladdin”, “Bengal Tiger”, etc. etc.
• He was truly “one of a kind.”

My advice to anyone having difficulty being brilliant: Steep your mind by doing something you are passionate about which will soothe your soul.

 

copyright © 2014 by Gary S. Smolker

Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin – by Gary S. Smolker

Copyright © Gary S. Smolker 2014

Updated June 28, 2014

The only thing that matters is how one feels in one’s own space.

It is very important to be comfortable in your own skin.

As a result of people striving to be comfortable in their own skin -to enrich their own lives- many significant changes are taking place.

 

ONLY YOU CAN BE COMFORTABLE IN YOUR OWN SKIN

We are living in a time of large scale social change, marked by creativity, innovation, questioning of authority, rugged individualism, concern for self, the emancipation of women, changing demographics, wide scale use of smart phones and many other significant life style transformations.

Today, people are devoting significant amounts of their personal time and energy focused on themselves.  Many people are making strong efforts to take charge of their own individual future.

Today, a developing emphasis on the individual and individual responsibility is growing, the power of authority over the individual is constantly being questioned and reassessed, the traditional authority relationship between men and women – granting authority to the men – is undergoing change and scrutiny, and there are significant changes in the racial educational and economic composition of the population in the United States.

The increased emphasis on the individual cannot be over emphasized.

Concern for individualism has vigorously appeared.

Today, compared to times past, women have attained a great deal more responsibility and freedom.

As a result of having more freedom and responsibility women have themselves come to question their traditional family and social roles and reciprocally, males have raised similar questions about male-female relationships.

As women move out of confinement to the domicile, they experience new outlets and opportunities, demand power/empowerment, respect and “equality”, and are more and more interested in change.

Improvements in methods of contraception and the increase in experiential access to opportunities outside of the home have released women for participation in new roles and functions as never before.

As a consequence of “women’s liberation”, on-going debates on issues of gender and racial equality; the government’s ever growing increase of public debt and social change, including laws regarding contraception and birth control; a cascade of new technologies; and, being bombarded by an avalanche of messages, visual images of massive disintegration of society, a steady stream of information and misinformation and ideas; and, as a result of being constantly exposed to loud acrimonious debates over different points of view, it has become impossible for anyone to live in solitude or in the past.

People Are Tired of Being Talked To, They Want to Be Talked With

The mega-trends that are shaping our times have massively accelerated.

One mega-trend is that there has been a seismic shift from presentation to participation in many areas of daily life.  People are fed up with being talked-down-to.

The shift from presentation to participation means that the days of the Gods, sitting up on Mt. Olympus and telling us how things are and what to do, are long gone or rapidly coming to an end.

People are tired of being talked to they want to be talked with.

Today, people can use technology to search for information and to have a global conversation.

People are hyper-connected: As a result of our use of the Internet and other communications technologies we all engaged in a global conversation.

We are using technology to connect with others – not just with people we already know, but with people who have similar or related interests that resonate with us – and not just to search for information.

In fact, it is estimated that 3 billion more people will join the Internet’s community by 2020.

Everyone’s perceptual space, expectations, life style and peace of mind has been shaken up.

Taking Care of Your Body and Mind

People want to feel cared for.

How does that play out in the practice of medicine?

Consider being told by an MD to put an eye-drop in your child’s eye or in your own eye.

Have you ever been told to do so by an MD?

Have you ever noticed that the eye drop falls onto your eye and/or onto your child’s eye then off your [child’s] eye and wondered how much (if any) of the eye drop actually got in the eye?

Health is “emotionally charged.”

If you are told by your physician to put an eye drop in your child’s eye and you see the drop dribbling down your child’s cheek you are going to be stressed out.

Did your physician tell you that is supposed to happen?

The moisture of an eye drop is too much for an eye to handle; part of the eye drop will ALWAYS dribble down your face or down you child’s face!   That is what is supposed to happen!

MDs, for the most part, have no clue that they should tell you that an eye drop you apply to your child’s eye will always dribble down off the eye.

Is your physician or you partially “brain dead?”

It is not “easy” to know what to communicate, or to know how to communicate or to have empathy or to show empathy.

Being “smart” is not enough.

Always ask questions if you don’t understand something!

You are in charge of your own health.

If you have a young child, you are in charge of  your child’s health.

You are in charge of your own life and your child’s life if you have a young child.

Understand Your MD’s Behavior

One of the large scale social changes being experienced today is that many people are appalled at their personal experience of how medicine is being practiced today on a day to day basis ; they are appalled at the lack of scientific curiosity, the lack of social skills, the lack of humanity, and by the medical profession’s lack of understanding of what is required and expected in a physician patient relationship and the money obsessed focus of the mindset of their MDs.

A galaxy of feelings and impressions is involved in a healthcare encounter.  The medical profession has a name for this: “patient experience.”

There is a human dimension to medical care.

If you are one of those people who are disappointed by the way your current MD practices medicine, understand why your physician acts the way your physician acts and get over your disappointment by moving forward.

If your physician is not adequately addressing your educational, emotional, spiritual needs and feelings, doesn’t make you feel cared for, move on.

You have lots of options.

Move forward because only you can be comfortable in your own skin.

We create ourselves in the everyday choices that move us in life.

It is up to us to create our own lives; it is up to us to create the life we want to live.

If you think you are not deriving “value” from your office visits with your physician: Ask your physician questions. Tell your physician you want answers to questions and/or changes in the way your physician treats you.

Demand your physician’s personal attention.

There are many physicians vying for your attention, bringing medical information to you and exposing you to them and their ways of thinking.

Magazine stands and book stores are full of publications which claim to tell you how to take care of your health.

Newspapers and TV shows and radio shows and the Internet constantly publish information on how to take care of your health.

If you can’t have a forthright conversation with your physician and/or you don’t get any satisfaction or enough satisfaction or enough value from seeing your present physician, look for another physician who is amazingly brilliant, touchingly humane, highly trained, superbly skilled, up to date on the latest research findings and medical thinking and who has a great personality, warmth, empathy, great people skills, is practical and puts you the patient first, puts your concerns, your feelings, your condition (physical and mental conditions) first.

Physicians need to treat the soul and spirit of the patient, not just the body.  In the olden days, when most doctors were solo practitioners ministering to patients, the offered patients communication and empathy as well as technical proficiency and excellence.

There are physicians that still do that: there are physicians who care about how well they communicate with patients and conduct themselves as professionals.

Caring, nurturing, knowledgeable, educated, skilled, brilliant and helpful people exist; some of them are physicians.

Even if you are not trained as a physician, you know whether or not you feel cared for.

Move Forward

Take responsibility for your own life.

Accept your “freedom.”

Don’t behave like a helpless puppet.

You are in charge.

REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

 

Creative talent is a highly adaptive one and involves specific and complicated processes of thought.

Creativity requires an open mindedness and removal of inhibitions.

Practicing medicine, the stress on conformity in the medical profession and psychodynamic forces inherent in the practice of medicine do not encourage open-mindedness.

Many physicians have mental limitations as a consequence of studying to become a physician which are exasperated by their training and which become severely debilitating as they get further and further experienced in the daily routine of practicing medicine day to day.

A MD friend of mine recently mentioned to me that most physicians lose their dynamic sensory and information processing capabilities.

He explained to me that the memorization demands of the natural science/life sciences courses taken before and while attending medical school destroys their capacity to solve problems by thinking creatively. 

According to this friend: A physician’s creative orientation and ability, if they had any, diminishes and finally goes away as they practice medicine.

While practicing medicine their mental capability due to following standard methods which are recipe book like protocols they follow while they are engaged in their day-to-day professional work.

He explained that very few lectures, in medical school, engage a student’s mind. 

Relatedly, he explained that physicians are not taught to think innovatively so that as they work, they can gain insight into patients’ needs and strive to find new solutions. 

In summary: Young doctors are not educated to be curious researchers and inventors as well as knowledgeable, compassionate, and effective healers. 

They are not trained to be physician-investigators. 

Mind Expanding Experiences

Medical training is not entirely a boring brain deadening experience. 

Throughout basic clinical education small groups of students are presented with a realistic case study (in a hospital or elsewhere) of a patient showing special symptoms. 

The students work together to figure out what is wrong with the patient and what to do about it. 

Tasks are assigned by the instructor that allow the medical students to discover the skills and knowledge any doctor needs in treating a patient that is ill, in traditional areas such as pharmacology, anatomy, and physiology.

“Diagnosis” of medical conditions (i.e. problems) does require a limited amount of analysis, called “differential analysis” [a hit and miss way of determining the cause and/or existence of a medical problem], AFTER the problem already exists.

Because medical training revolves around lecturing and the rote presentation of facts and the practice of standard diagnosis techniques it does not foster the curiosity and inquisitiveness that great innovators commonly display.

As a result, in their every day medical practices very few physicians reach or come to medical conclusions on a particular case after completing many studies and giving a matter much thought; instead, they come to their “medical conclusion” re diagnosis and treatment by following a “one-size-fits-all” a recipe in a recipe book. 

Physicians not been trained to become lifelong learners – strong thinkers who are curious and who work proactively to satisfy their curiosity.

They have been trained (some might say programmed) to follow standard procedures – they are in effect highly trained robots, that is why the standard practice of medicine is in the midst of a huge change, it is being overtaken by innovations. 

A willingness to innovate (which is totally lacking in the standard practice of medicine) will determine the clinical, social and economic futures of medicine in the United States. 

The vast majority of the current set of physicians are not willing to innovate.

Instead, the vast majority of  physicians feel compelled to stay within “standards of medical practice” and do not question, or analyze whether such “standards of practice” make “scientific sense” or not. 

They do not experiment or have a willingness to innovate or to explore challenges to currently accepted “medical truths.” 

They are not curiously engaged humans who want to help patients by pushing medicine further.

They are discouraged from making, recording and acting on their own clinical observations which could or would lead to the establishment of new and better medical care, and new standards of care.

Being curious and then designing and caring out experiments to test ideas is one of the most satisfying uses of a mind. 

Most physicians give up their ability to engage their minds in the pleasurable and satisfying activity of doing research when they begin to practice medicine – because to them the practice of medicine is like playing a broken-slot-machine which always pays – and they “think” they will get great pleasure out of making a lot of money and that is why their focus is on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

In that regard, almost all medical doctors practicing medicine in the United States today tried to go into whatever medical specialty would make them the most money in the shortest period of time and are obsessed with making the most money they can make from the practice of medicine.

Another one of my MDs friends further explained to me why there is such a pronounced lack of creativity and innovation in the medical profession as follows:

• “Most MDs are one trick ponies.” 
• This friend (a highly acclaimed MD – who does not practice one trick pony medicine) further explained to me – “If you only know how to use a hammer, everything is a nail.”

Energizing the Minds of Physicians

Research projects energize students, engage them in serious science, and generate the kinds of questions that lead to new discoveries. 

A focus on medical research in the training of medical students and in medical practice would give medical students and physicians a richer, fuller appreciation of how their clinical practice fits into the larger world of scientific knowledge and which would enrich and refine their decision-making capabilities.

Adding a research requirement to their education and to maintaining their license to practice medicine would dramatically enhance medical care – help patients by pushing medicine further.

In my opinion, everyone would benefit.

Is It True that Physicians Are “Poor” Businessmen/Have No Business Sense?

Many successful business people have told me that MDs have no “business sense.”

Have you wondered why it is the general feeling among many successful business people that MDs have no business sense ?

Here are some questions I have asked myself in order to gain insight into that issue:

• QUERY:
• (1) How many physicians practicing medicine have thought about what practicing medicine has done to the functional capacity of that “muscle” in their head called their brain as a result of lack of mentally stressful mind-strength building exercise in their daily lives?
• (2) How many care?
• By the way: “Scientific” experiments demonstrate that use of the brain builds neural networks that enable the brain to process information faster and more efficiently.  In other words, using your brain makes you smarter, increases brain function.
• The old saying “use it or lose it” applies to brain function.

GIANTS IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

There are giants in the medical profession who are human wonders.

Also, the conventional make-up of the scientific and educational background, personality, values and world-view of a growing number of people in the medical profession is changing.

I am meeting a physician this afternoon at the check in area of jetBlue at Logan Airport in Boston before I fly back to LAX, Los Angeles International Airport.

This physician has an open mind, but that description seriously understates the reality, which is that he is totally curious and eager to learn and asks question after question.

This morning my daughter and son-in-law took my ten year old grandson to be examined by a retina specialist and a trauma eye surgeon for a follow-up examination.

The first thing the retina specialist and eye surgeon said when he saw my grandson was: “I know how to make toys.  Would you like to see me make toys?”

The surgeon then proceeded to make an origami hopping frog and a flying helicopter.  He precisely folded pieces of paper and precisely tore pieces of paper with his own fingers.

When he was done those pieces of paper had been transformed into a hopping frog and a flying helicopter.

This is a true story – someone with that dexterity and people skill actually practices medicine as an eye surgeon in Boston.

He is an expert in the retina of the eye.

The rest of the members of the clinical medical team have extraordinary expertise and are just as kind and as extremely accomplished and competent physicians as the toy making eye surgeon who made toys for my grandson just before examining his retina early this morning.

Males Being Rebuffed by Stunning Women

One young woman friend of mine [a beautiful and smart woman] rejected her parents desire that she marry a doctor because she thinks the single MDs pursuing her (young Ferrari driving money making obsessed male physicians) are too lacking in substance, she thinks they are shallow self-destructive individuals and if she dated any of them or married anyone of them she would be doomed to living a tasteless meaningless life. 

This young lady doesn’t want to have the emotional burden such physicians put on the women who prostitute themselves to gain that type of physician’s tasteless attention.

She considers their lack of “substance” to be a “sick” situation which will lead those shallow people to “self-destruction” and being in a constant state of extreme unhappiness. 

She is concerned about their mental health.

It is her opinion that those Ferrari driving young MDs did not go into medicine to help people but instead went into medicine because they are insecure and feel worthless as human beings: they will always be striving to compensate for their feelings of worthlessness and insecurity through fantasies of “greatness” which they have striven to realize by becoming a physician.

It is her opinion that her Ferrari driving young MD suitors

•  Believe they will prove their worth to their parents by being an MD.  They psychologically are not well formed or mature adults.  To the contrary, they will have a never compelling need to obtain their parents’ approval, the approval of the rest of their family and of their community and her approval by being a money making machine.

• The feeling of lack of worth has been so consuming in their lives that nothing short of overwhelming financial success will make them feel acceptable.

 

It is her opinion that those young men are unhappy and will always be unhappy.

 

For all the reasons listed above, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of those young suitors.

Other, dynamically accomplished women (who coincidentally are smart and stunningly beautiful) I have talked to are totally turned off by the phoniness they are being subjected to in the business and social world they inhabit. 

They feel they are “prized” by successful men as status symbols and are not adored or appreciated prized or cherished for being the warm caring persons who they are or for the good companionship and loyalty they have to offer —

• One beautiful smart successful woman explained her mindset:  She is revolted at being cast in the role being a dynamic businessman’s Gucci purse. 
• She is revolted at being a prestige high status decoration. 
• Another beautiful smart successful woman explained to me that the pressure of being phony – while accompanying her successful husband at ‘society events:  While at parties and social events the amount of phony interest she must display and being forced to be entertaining she is is too emotionally exhausting. 
• She would rather stay home and watch TV than go to another party in the star studded world she lives in.  The routine of being a member of high society is maddening.  Doing the same thing day after day, year after year, is maddening to her.  She cannot imagine anything more boring than living her present high society life. 
• The routines people in her social circle have taken up are tasteless. 
• She is a rugged individualist, who is physically fit and intellectually cultured, who can’t stand the “over-civilized life” she is forced to live. 
• The boorishness and meaninglessness of her existence tests the very limits of her endurance. 
• She is resolved to escape her present life.

 

• These women know who they are and who they want to be in a very fundamental way.
• They have self knowledge.
• They are dedicated to protecting their dignity in their money-driven every day world where their souls and status as a person are constantly under attack.
• They realize how precarious the balance is between creation and annihilation and destruction in the life they lead and in the business world they and the men in their lives inhabit.
• In that world everyone always is seeking investors and to make more money.
• In such a world everyone feels they must “look” successful.  They must spend a lot of money on clothing and cars and houses and jewelry, etc. etc. etc.
• However, the “thinking” women described above – who are moving towards becoming the persons they want to be, and have understood who they are and the psychodynamic forces at play in the world work – don’t want to be emotionally and financially dependent on a man or to be his “eye candy.”
• They are not hostile or bitter or resentful.
• Nor do they have destructive feelings.
• They know what they want.
• They want to be loved and to love; they want to receive bliss and to give bliss.
• They want to give and receive care and nurturance.
• They are not fickle.
• Their sexuality and emotions are inextricably intermingled.
• Their bodies wear the smile of accomplishment; they emote a subjective sense of freedom.

SOCIAL STATUS AND NUMBING OF A PHYSICIAN’S BRAIN 

The practice of medicine [which is viewed by brilliant people as a “game” of association] attracts “smart people” but overall does not attract or hold the attention of people with the most “brilliant” minds.

I recently flew from Los Angeles International Airport to Logan Airport in Boston.  

The person sitting next to me on my flight from LAX to BOS told me that 4 out of his 6 closest friends/classmates – fellow students at Cal Tech – “wanted” to be MDs during their freshman year at Cal Tech.

He also mentioned that after taking pre-med courses for a year or two, half of them decided they didn’t want to be MDs. 

He implied that his fellow Cal Tech undergraduate student closest friends saw the handwriting on the wall:  “Brain Death”  would happen to their brains if they continued to prepare for the practice of medicine and “heaven forbid” if they actually became practicing physicians they would lose their acute highly developed ability to think.

He concluded and his friends concluded that practicing medicine would be an act of self-destruction.

He expressed his understanding to me that he and his friends at Cal Tech have hyperactive dynamic thinking alert minds that are always on the go and which need to be fueled by and are energized by having constant new challenges and experiences.

That Being Said: He concluded that being a MD would be too boring an existence ant that being an MD would cause his hyper-active highly functional brain to atrophy.

He mentioned that the smartest people in the world attend Cal Tech —

• Cal Tech students have the highest SAT scores —
• Additionally, it is a small elite school.  There are only 1,000 undergraduates, 1,000 graduate students and a faculty of 1,000.

• This leads to lots of interaction between students with one another and with faculty which is prized by everyone.

• The faculty wants to teach the most brilliant students.

• The most brilliant students want to be taught by the most brilliant faculty and to interact with other brilliant students.

THE BABY BUST AND ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET OF THE SO-CALLED “SMARTEST, BEST AND BRIGHTEST”

Recently, while visiting my eldest daughter Terra, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, I read the Winter 2014 issue of WHARTON Magazine.

“Wharton” is a prestigious business school in the United States.

One article described a study which compares Wharton graduates who graduated in 1992 (the class of 1992) with the class of 2012 in terms of the number of graduates who plan to have children.

The study found that the number of Wharton graduates planning to have children has dropped nearly by half over the past 20 years.

These averages are equal for men and women.  They are both dropping out of parenthood.

This change in plans is not unique to young business professionals.  It’s part of a larger trend: a nationwide baby bust.

Across the United States, births have dropped precipitously.  In 1992, the average US woman gave birth to 2.05 children over the course of her life.  By 2011, it had dropped to 1.89, well below the replacement rate of 2.10.

Another article in the Winter 2014 issue of WHARTON Magazine reports that:

• The amount of interest in entrepreneurship at Wharton is just crazy.

• Historically the school has been associated with careers in finance and consultancy.

• For the first time, more Wharton students are interested in starting companies than in buying them.

• A growing number of Wharton graduates are willing to trade wing tips, three-star Manhattan restaurants and Tribeca lofts for sneakers, take-out pizza and sleeping under their desks as they race to get a product out the door.

• In fact more members of the Wharton graduating class of 2013 started a company than joined a hedge fund.

Our civilization has reached a tripping point.

Many people want to exercise freedom by (a) expressing who they are, (b) by experiencing who they can be, and (c) by living their life to the fullest.

They have concluded that the most important thing in their lives is to be comfortable in their own skins.

GSS

 

Why the movie “Dallas Buyers Club” is a box-office hit – a movie review by Gary Smolker (December 26, 2013)

People’s Will to Survive and Thrive

“Dallas Buyers Club” is about the will to survive and thrive.

In “Dallas Buyers Club”, the star (Matthew McConaughey) is a man with magnificent courage who refuses to accept the diagnosis that he has 30 days to live because he has AIDS.

“Dallas Buyers Club”, which is based on a true story, follows what that man does after he is told he has 30 days or less to live.

In spite of the efforts of the US government to stop him, he prolongs his life for another seven years by self-medicating himself with medicines not approved by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) and makes those medicines available to prolong the lives of others afflicted with AIDS.

In the “Dallas Buyers Club” information about a new drug and medical procedures for fighting AIDS is/was withheld by the government – and the government thwarted the efforts of people with AIDS to obtain medications that might prolong their lives.

The issue of what type of information can be “kept” by the government is not a settled issue. 

Debates are raging about (a) governmental denial of public access to information, (b) criminalization of the distribution of information and (c) the secrecy of information about special privileges for certain interests groups. 

Two recent court decisions about access to information and a proposed new international law to criminalize criticism of Islam illustrate what is going on.

A case decided by the California Supreme Court on December 17, 2013 (the Sander case) is about whether the public has the right to access public records (State Bar of California records) concerning applicants for admission to the practice of law in the State of California.

In the Sander case, UCLA Law School law professor Richard Sander, Joe Hick, and the California First Amendment Coalition sought a court order compelling the State Bar of California to grant Professor Sander access to State Bar admission records in order gather evidence with which to prove Sander’s theory that affirmative action resulted in a lower percentage of the minority students who got into prestigious law schools via “affirmative action” passing the state bar exam then the percentage of minority students who passed the state bar examination who went to other law schools – without the benefit of being admitted under “affirmative action.”

According to best selling author Malcolm Gladwell “Affirmative Action” is practiced aggressively in law schools, where black students are routinely offered positions in schools one tier higher than they would otherwise be able to attend.

The result?  According to Law Professor Richard Sander, more than half of all African-American law students in the United States – 51.6 percent – are in the bottom 10 percent of their law school class and almost three-quarters fall in the bottom 20 percent.

[Law School Professor Richard Sander believes “Affirmative Action” hurts the very people it is supposed to help and has written a book on the topic (with Stuart Taylor) titled Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It.]

The trial court rejected Sander’s request for an order requiring the State Bar to provide application for admission to practice law in California information to Sander.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the trial court’s denial of Sander’s request and issued an order which requires the trial court to reconsider Sander’s request for an order compelling the State Bar to provide such information to Sander.

The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal’s order, which ordered the trial court to revisit the issue.

The California Supreme Court said the thing to be decided by the trial judge is the proper balance of the public’s fundamental right to know how the government conducts the people’s business against the competing interest of private individuals to privacy concerning their identity and personal information- name, law school attended, undergraduate GPA, law school GPA, LSAT, bar passage, race.

Public access to government record cases (the public’s right to know cases) invoke common law principles, constitutional law principles and local laws which attempt to promote “open government” and seek to prevent secrecy about how the government conducts the people’s business.

The issue of what information and opinions the government can stop people from talking about is also up in the air.

In a case decided December 20, 2013, (the MBTA case), a federal judge rejected a “pro-Israel” group’s assertion that its free speech rights were violated when the MBTA turned down a subway advertisement on the grounds the ad was “demeaning and disparaging.”

The ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.  Support Israel; defeat Jihad.”

Officials with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rejected the ad in November on the basis that it violated the agency’s advertising guidelines, which include rejecting advertisements which demean and disparage individuals and groups.

MBTA officials said they believe the advertisement demeans and disparages Muslims and/or Palestinians.

The Sander case and the MBTA case are two examples of judges looking into things deeply in order to understand their own true nature.

“DALLAS BUYERS CLUB” IS A CELEBRATION OF LIFE MOVIE

Dallas Buyers Club” is “based” on the true story of a man who was told he had 30 days to live when it was discovered that he had AIDS, but by “self-medicating” with medicines not approved by the FDA prolonged his life for another seven years.

“Dallas Buyers Club” is also about how the government (in this case the FDA) and licensed hospitals and licensed physicians conduct the people’s business with respect to the management of information and protection of the health of people participating in clinical trials of new medicines before, during and after the conduct of clinical trials of experimental drugs.

In “Dallas Buyers Club” a man (a risk taking quirky individual who is the main character in the movie) while looking into an experimental medicine (AZT), discovered the harmful deadly effects of AZT then undergoing clinical trials, looked into the result of a variety of clinical trials (for combating AIDS) that were conducted in other countries, and battled the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for the right of himself and other terminal AIDS patients to choose to take medicines not approved by the FDA in a last desperate attempt to prolong their lives.

It turns out that the medication that man fought to be allowed to provide to other people would have saved their life.

Dramatic tension in this movie is created by the FDA frustrating the efforts of an outsider trying to tell something true and to save lives.

The main character in “Dallas Buyers Club” tried to provide life saving medicines to people infected with AIDS over the objection, bullying and legal actions taken by the FDA against him.

Issues are explored in “Dallas Buyers Club” in a gruff no-nonsense way.

The issues explored include

• Who is the FDA protecting?
• Who do clinical trials protect and how do clinical trials protect anyone?
• For whose benefit are clinical trials conducted?
• The possibility for people to determine their own circumstances.
• Do terminal patients have the right to take medicines not approved by the FDA?
  

In “Dallas Buyers Club”, the main character (played by Matthew McConaughey) starts out, at the beginning of the movie, being a sleazy alienated unhappy card cheat, throwing away his life doing nothing of value for himself or for others.

As the movie progresses he becomes a noble caring individual willing to battle the government and to spend his personal fortune to save other people’s lives.

Matthew McConaughey’s interactions with other people and the government is flawlessly believable, an example of the practice of the highest acting skill level by an actor.

The Sander case, the MBTA case and “Dallas Buyers Club” movie are about consciousness, the free flow of information and opinions, the right and/or privilege to criticize and freedom including exploration of the question, Does freedom include freedom of choice?

On the current hotly debated topic of the free flow of information and opinions, a block of 57 Muslim countries is currently demanding that the West make it an international crime to criticize Islam.

In a 94 page document on “Islamophobia,” the Saudi based Organization of Islamic Cooperation lists as potential felonies: expressing “ideas that Muslims are inclined to violence” and “Islam is an inherently expansionist religion.”

In it’s report, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation proposes the U.S. and Europe bar from entry known critics of Islam, so they can’t take part in rallies or lectures regarding terrorism.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation also wants to censor teachers and indoctrinate students by requiring compliance with it’s proposed “Guidelines for Educators on Countering Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims.”

In answer to the question “What is freedom?” Archibald MacLeish, Pulitzer Price winning American poet has given the following answer.

“What is freedom?  Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice.  Without the possibility of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.”

“Dallas Buyers Club” is  a box-office smash, because it is in tune with the people’s feelings about the right to create for themselves the alternatives of choice.

“Dallas Buyers Club” reproduces the richness and clamor of people living in the world today to create a better life for themselves and a better world.

“Modern” mature intelligent people want to know what is going on, want to think, want to be exposed to information critical of government.

Everyone identifies with the main character in “Dallas Buyers Club” – a desperate outsider who in his attempt to save his own life saves his own life and the life of others by unselfishly telling the truth and “breaking the law.”

Copyright © 2013 by Gary S. Smolker