A Brief History of Healthcare
Long ago, most doctors were general practitioners and had to know many things about how to recognize and address many conditions. They were on the front lines of healthcare, and this made them excellent doctors. Over time, specialists became more and more common in order to focus on the ever-increasing body of medical knowledge and its subsequent technological advances.
Unfortunately, most of these advances came in the form of pharmacology and the complicated mechanisms of drug interactions. Pharmaceutical profits grew as mankind placed its faith in a magical pill, thrill, potion, or lotion that would cure the aches and pains of living and aging. Also, medical specialists began to focus on singular organs and the diseases affecting them rather than entire body systems and how to achieve true health in relation to their interactions with one another.
For instance, healthcare lost the understanding of how hormone dysregulation or environmental toxicity could cause headaches and began treating the headache with anti-inflammatory drugs. The headache became the diagnosis rather than what it truly was – a symptom of a deeper problem. The “Check Engine” light on our body’s dashboard came on, and we simply snipped the wire to turn it off. The problem still existed, but our awareness of the problem was numbed by medications to kill the alarm signal.
Specialists began dominating the arena of healthcare, and pharmaceutical giants grew ever larger. Specializing was now seen as evidence of higher intellect, higher standards, and a higher calling. Public confidence was placed more and more on those who looked at a narrow section of human function through a very selective set of medical blinders, so to speak. In order for one to specialize, a doctor must forsake the mastery of human function outside his or her area of specialty. The neurosurgeon views his position as superior to the immunologist, and the endocrinologist has little interest in explaining to the orthopedist how his knowledge of skeletal components may be affected by hormone regulation.
How foolish have we become? Can a vehicle function without expelling waste products? Can a computer function without managing dissipation of heat or drawing energy from a power source?
At Divine Design, we specialize in not specializing. A very famous author once said, “Specialization is for insects.” We couldn’t agree more.
We have a very different perspective on life and health – one that says the body is anything but a collection of unrelated functions and isolated systems. Like all of nature, nothing functions in a vacuum or exists separately by itself. We see the human body as a completely integrated creation – a divine design with powerful purpose and potential.
