Peachy the Magazine June July 2014 | Page 121

HEALTH + WELLNESS time at an increased cost. Their visits are simply triage sessions designed to order tests, procedures and surgeries. What is most concerning is Americans are suffering from more health conditions and continue to be less healthy every year. They are responsible for the decline in their own health. They lack appropriate education and currently the medical office environment is not conducive to providing them the education they need. Physicians often lack the education as well. Medical education is now funded by the very corporations that profit the most—the pharmaceutical corporations and the hospitals. Thus, medical training now concentrates on pharmaceuticals, procedures, hospital care and testing. There is little to no education on prevention of disease and nutrition. Medical corporations do not profit from prevention. How did it get so complicated? It seems America’s medical system is as unhealthy as we have become and at the rate we are going it will be impossible to financially support this system. It seems an impossible fix and it is unclear where to start making changes. Patients and physicians must be the catalysts for change. It is unclear where to start yet the solutions may lie in teachings from thousands of years ago. About 2,400 years ago, an early physician, Hippocrates, wrote a manual providing early physicians and patients with basic and useful information designed to provide a holistic approach to care. Though today every medical student takes the “Hippocratic oath” when receiving his medical degree, few of these new doctors are familiar with Hippocrates’s basic teachings and fewer yet put any of the principles into practice. Hippocrates teachings were clearly ahead of his time. His guidelines should serve as a foundation for the changes needed in our healthcare system today. Hippocrates was a Greek physician who was born in 460 BC on the Greek island of Cos. At the time, he was regarded as one of the greatest physicians of his day. He based much of his writings and practice on observations of the human body and how it was affected by man’s surrounding environment. He thwarted the belief that disease was punishments from the gods and instead was a result of environmental and physical effects. He was a great believer in cause and effect. Some of his teachings are JUNE JULY 2014 119