Triggerband Web Journal

At the center of the healthcare industry lies a corrupted system that is the source of innumerable troubles. That core is the medical profession.

Medicine underwent a period of growth, reform, and cohesion in the latter part of the nineteenth century that formed the medical profession of today. Newly transformed, during the first half of the twentieth century medicine used advances in technology and industry to cure infections and injuries that had been previously untreatable.

Unfortunately, the medical profession failed to adapt itself to a new wave of epidemics surfacing during the second half of the twentieth century. It had served the profession well to use drugs as weapons against a deadly array of pathogenic infections. However, medicine did not change its tactics to meet recent challenges of lifestyle- and pollutant-related illnesses.

One might wonder why a profession that prides itself on being modern has stubbornly resisted change. The answer is that there is no good reason why physicians abandoned rational thought and adaptability, but there are reasons:

1. Self-preservation. Physicians fear that fundamental changes in the practice of medicine could limit their viability, jeopardize their livelihood, and require further educational pursuits.

2. Self-esteem. Too many physicians have sacrificed their families, friends, and identities for the sake of their practices. Having failed in every other area of life, emotionally it is unthinkable they have also failed in the practice of medicine.

3. Indoctrination. Strange though this sounds to the outsider, a cult-like mentality prevails within the medical profession. Members are expected to believe the tenets of medical philosophy and not think for themselves. Most American physicians are competitive, ambitious professionals who long for approbation and acceptance. Only a rigid framework of universally-held “doctrine” provides them with a concrete measurement of their achievement.

4. Unholy alliance. Why do physicians willingly cater to the business interests of pharmaceutical corporations by prescribing expensive and unnecessary medications? Drug companies ensure physicians keep their niche as gatekeepers of the medicine cabinet (see reason 1, above); drug representatives are readily available as buddies to physicians on a personal level (see reason 2, above); and drug companies determine the “standard” in medical care (see reason 3, above).

What is notable is that all these reasons have to do with the physician and none have to do with the patient. Physicians have subordinated patient results to their own interests, including their desire to feel like they are helping patients.

The profession has become so corrupt and ineffective that there is a trend toward marginalizing physicians – replacing them with nurse practitioners, physician assistants, physical therapists, nurse anesthetists, and online pharmacies. Healthcare’s rotten core must be either repaired or replaced. In other words, to reform healthcare we must also reform medicine.

Alexander Typaldos, JD

You are at a sink to wash your hands. You have used this sink before and know that if you turn the knob beyond two thirds, the water will be too hot. Less than one third of a turn is too cold, and halfway is warm – perfect for hand washing. This is your model.

So you turn the knob to halfway and begin washing your hands. However, the water heats up faster than you expected and reaches an uncomfortable temperature. This new evidence conflicts with your model, and you are faced with two choices. The first is to continue believing that at half a turn water is ideal for hand washing. You would thus wash your hands in scalding water and convince yourself that something other than the water’s temperature is causing your pain.

Your second choice is to carve an exception into your model: Turn the knob halfway and the temperature is usually pleasant, but is sometimes too hot. When you make this choice you are adjusting your model to the evidence. And this gives you mental freedom to turn the knob until the water is at a more pleasant temperature.

Tomorrow, you find that the halfway mark is still too hot for comfort. In fact, every time you use the sink for the next month, a half turn is uncomfortably warm and one third turn is ideal. Either there has been a permanent change in the plumbing, or the original model was incorrect.

Regardless, it would probably be a good idea to change your model. If you do not, the following routine will ensue repeatedly: you turn the knob halfway until the water burns your hands. Then you apply the aforementioned exception and lower the knob to one third turn.

A very unsexy truth

The answer to America’s healthcare problems, and the catalyst for a medical revolution, will not be found in politics, technology, or economics. The answer lies in mental thought processes and philosophies. At its heart, this means better education and training. Let me clarify that better is not added years of formal education and a more rigorous curriculum. It means doctors must be taught how to adjust and refine their models and methods by what they see in practice.

Alexander Typaldos, JD

Typaldos Manual Therapy has proven to be a highly effective set of techniques, outperforming even expensive and intensive orthopedic surgery with only manual application. However, the true strength behind TMT is the fascial distortion model. Its implications are far beyond manual therapy, reforming all medical and surgical approaches to acute injury and chronic pain.

But what enabled Dr. Typaldos to discover this model and develop manual treatments to correct fascial distortions envisioned in the model? It was his way of thinking. His thought processes were superior to the prevailing philosophies in medicine. And he was thus able to single-handedly make advancements that large organizations like the American Heart Association can only dream of.

This should not surprise you. Historically, individuals who were able to view things in a new, better way have made enormous contributions to science and medicine. The inventions of Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Leonardo da Vinci put the developments of multinational corporations like GE to shame. Actually, tech companies have a different role in our economy. They take inventions and convert them into usable designs, but rarely do giant corporations make fundamental changes or advancements.

Dr. Typaldos first broke with orthodoxy when he concluded that his medical training was in the form of models and theories – rather than undeniable truths – and they were subject to change in the face of new, conflicting information. Next, he critiqued the models and theories to determine whether they were consistent with what he saw in practice.

The result is a better way of evaluating medical theories and practices. I have “codified” Dr. Typaldos’s greatest discovery of all into Triggerband’s theme: A logical, rational, reasonable approach to medicine. Now let us look at how to apply these analyses to real models:

Chiropractic spinal adjustments. Is it logical to think that by adjusting the spinal column a doctor can make changes throughout the body? Yes, because the adjustments are said to affect the spinal cord itself, and the nerves from the spinal cord regulate functioning everywhere in the body.

Next we can ask, is it rational to say that these adjustments to the spinal column can help cure nearly every disease? Possibly. On one hand, impulses carried by the nerves from the spinal cord do have the ability to bring dramatic changes in every system. On the other hand, however, it is doubtful that merely “adjusting” the spinal column is able to meaningfully alter the functioning of the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system.

Finally, is it reasonable to claim that spinal adjustments can cure almost any disease? No, this point is where the theory falls flat. Even if adjustments were able to enhance functioning of the spinal cord, it would be impossible to make the minute, complex changes necessary to resolve specific conditions. And if the central nervous system has the power to cure all these diseases, why does it wait until a chiropractor adjusts the spine?

Orthopedic surgery for worn knee cartilage. Orthopedics is a complex specialty, so I chose one specific condition. Is it logical to treat knee pain by replacing cartilage that is worn out? No, it is not, actually. Cause and effect has not been established. Very often, patients who suffer from knee pain in one knee have worn cartilage in both knees. The logical conclusion is that something other than worn cartilage is causing their pain.

For the sake of analysis, let us ask the remaining questions. Is this treatment approach rational? Yes, if the worn cartilage were causing the pain, a knee replacement would probably help. Is it reasonable to believe that this type of treatment can cure a patient’s disability? Yes, a knee replacement is a major anatomical change in the exact region affected.

Hopefully, these examples are giving you a glimpse into how much can be accomplished and reformed without a single new device. And I want to emphasize that Dr. Typaldos was no more intelligent than other physicians. What he had was better mental software. This means that anyone who has enough intelligence to become a skilled healthcare professional can learn to think the way he did.

Alexander Typaldos, JD

Health practitioners generally fall into one of two categories. One says that if drugs can’t fix it, then it can’t be fixed. The other says herbs and nutritional supplements can accomplish far more than drugs without the bad side effects.

You probably expect me to take sides; but I’m not going to. I am logical, rational, and reasonable, and it would be unreasonable to take either extreme position. Drugs have their place, and so do herbs. Thus, I advocate a tiered approach.

The first tier is a healthy lifestyle and sanitation. Once disease takes its toll on the human body, rarely will health return a full 100 percent. Furthermore, prevention is the least costly of all remedies. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And a doctor who is a friend of mine said, “If you can’t find time to exercise, you will have to find time to be sick.”

Tier two is herbs and natural remedies. Healthcare practitioners emphasize remedies you can take by mouth, such as nutritional supplements and herbal teas. However, I include in this category mechanical treatments such as physical therapy, hydrotherapy, and manual therapy.

Natural remedies are definitely preferable to medications if they can get the same result. But I will tell you from experience that even supplements and hydrotherapy can wear out the body over time. So be rational and use common sense when approaching tier two options.

Only when natural remedies fail, or are clearly insufficient, should healthcare practitioners move on to drugs and surgery. These remedies are powerful but risky, abounding in side effects and long recovery times.

And there is another reason to save drugs for last. They rarely resolve the underlying condition. Pain medication, insulin, hormones – these are patches that allow patients with debilitating illnesses to live normal lives until things resolve on their own. If a condition never resolves, then a lifetime of medication is all tier three has to offer.

This tiered system does combine standard and complementary medicine, but does not fall into another extreme, that of all-inclusiveness. Too many healthcare practitioners turn continuing education into a show-and-tell for new treatments. We need to be discerning, rather than ideological or frivolous. This is not a game. Millions of people are living in continual pain and disability. They need mature, honest, compassionate physicians who will take ownership of their cases.

And, yes, they need doctors who are logical, rational, and reasonable. If these qualities sound out-of-place in medicine, it’s because they are. Shotgun techniques and religious adherence to the tenets of one’s healing philosophy – practices that would never be tolerated in a field such as engineering – are commonplace in medicine.

Granted, the human body is enormously complex and dynamic, which makes the practice of medicine art as well as science. However, this very fact demands that doctors be even more logical, rational, and reasonable, not less so.

Alexander Typaldos, JD