1. My Bio
I worked in corporate America for 16 years. I suffered a severe repetitive stress injury on my last job that left me completely incapacitated for several months. I could not open doors, brush my hair, or prepare my food and could barely dress myself. Western medicine was completely ineffective at helping me recover from this injury. As a result, I continued searching until I found something that worked. During my search I was introduced to Chinese medicine. Although I did not get any relief from Chinese medicine for my repetitive stress injury, I was nonetheless, fascinated with the medicine. I spent my leisure time studying Chinese medicine until it became clear to me that I wanted to practice this healing art for the rest of my life. I now receive regular acupuncture treatments which have improved my health in the number of ways.
In addition to studying Chinese medicine, I am a proud mother of a 27-year-old daughter named Jennifer. She lives in Maine and is married to a wonderful guy named
Colin. She is currently studying for her Master's degree in accounting. My husband's name is Rob. He's an Architect and is originally from South Africa. We've been together for 26 years. We love to sail, cook, garden and have dinner parties with friends. Our dogs name is Hondi. He’s an Australian Labradoodle and is super cute.
2. Should there be more effective control of the pharmaceutical industry?
Absolutely. I was pretty disgusted after reading the article in class. It seems, at a minimum, that the industry is fraught with unethical practices. It says in the article “ So, physicians are walking a fairly fine line.” I personally think many have clearly crossed it.
I was stunned to learn about the off -label use of prescribing Neurontin for pain. As I mentioned in class, my physician prescribed it to me for that purpose. It did not work and it made me feel sick.
There is clearly a lot of evidence to confirm abuses in the pharmaceutical industry. What if doctors profited directly by selling medicine to their patients. Wouldn't this be a huge conflict of interest? In my opinion it would.
Yet, in our field this practice is commonplace. Practitioners make a profit on everything they sell. In the development of their business plans, practitioners calculate how many herbal formulas they need to sell in order to meet their inventory/sales objectives. Is this not a conflict of interest?
I don't mean to suggest that all Chinese medical practitioners are unethical and interested only in profits. However, I don't know any Chinese medical practitioners who sell herbal formulas at cost. They intend to make a profit on the medicines they sell. I think there is a lot of room for abuse with this practice. It is easy for us to point fingers at the Western medical community, but I think we need to make sure that our practices are scrutinized and regulated as well.
3. Results of quiz
I missed five on the quiz. I only got the others right because I happened to guess correctly.
2 comments:
Hi, I totally agree with you. First of all: yes they did cross the line, (see also my blog). Practitioners who subscribe the medication, get gifts, money etc to subscribe a particular kind of brand. And most of the time that medication isn't the most effective. It can even have more side effects, or it consist of the exact same matter but costs more for the patient.
Besides that, I think it is indeed realistic to be aware of it ourselves as well!
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for sharing the little tidbit of information about practitioners not selling herbal formulas at cost. Perhaps people feel they need to make money to make ends meet and feel okay about making a profit in this way...but it really doesn't feel right to me. Yes, definitely a conflict of interest.
Frances
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