Beyond the Soul’s Meridian January 27, 2017
The Willful Destruction of our Esteemed Profession
In 1936 the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) was established by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Physicians (ACP) as an independent organization to credential and “certify” our nation’s medical doctors through a series of proprietary testing. The ABIM acts as a non-profit corporation that has held a monopoly over our nation’s physicians for well over the last 75 years. For the vast majority of those 75 years the relationship between the ABIM and the organizations which created it remained in a relative state of equilibrium. Around the year 1990, things dramatically changed. Despite the fact that by 1990 our physicians had conceded to a series of highly rigorous credentialing examinations and a program of lifelong academic learning known as CME (Continuing Medical education) pressure was applied to our nation’s doctors to capitulate to a new program that would be instituted by the ABIM which would in effect strip all physicians of their tenure.
Let me be clear on this. Before the year 1990, doctors worked through competitive and laborious training programs only to be credentialed after passing a series of rigorous academic testing. Once this was achieved they needed to maintain a minimum of 50 hours per year of ongoing education to maintain their credential status throughout the rest of their vocational life. For most physicians this appeared to be a reasonable process. Yet the medical industry believed that this time tested method was outmoded and that additional forms of credentialing needed to be instituted. An argument was made that the explosion of scientific information was so fast paced and expansive that doctors needed to be coerced forcefully into keeping abreast of the technology driven “medical breakthroughs” in order to protect the public. In retrospect, this was really a false argument and nothing more than a Trojan horse for the invisible powers which have wrestled away the control of our profession.
So a debate ensued as to whether a higher level of scrutiny was necessary. This additional credentialing became known as Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and was originally pitched to the physicians as academically based exercises that would be done in our “spare time” within the comfort of our home. Initially no one was really interested, so to sweeten the deal, all voting members of the American College of Physicians, which included the senior body down to the resident physicians, would be grandfathered into their practice with full lifetime tenure. Only the non-voting future members of our medical profession would be subjected to this additional process of perpetual and redundant MOC. In retrospect, I can see no other way of interpreting the action of our senior colleagues outside of shortsightedness at best to cowardliness and treachery at worst. Clearly, those physicians who needed to be “influenced” were gotten to, and not only sold out their junior peers, but opened the door for the eventual destruction of the vocation itself as the medical industry eventually got what they really wanted— a future workforce stripped of their autonomy and further indentured into their corporate indoctrination and protocols.
Today doctors must continue to take high stake examinations, which if they do not pass will in effect end their career. Furthermore, they are also mandated to participate in the additional MOC activities every 2 years which are time consuming, costly, and ill received by the vast majority of the doctors now subjected to these draconian measures. What is being perpetrated upon our nation’s physicians is being done to them with their overwhelming disapproval and an absence of consent. (1, 2) Furthermore, there is very convincing evidence which links the ABIM to unethical business practices and illegal political activities which simply amount to corruption and graft. (3) Considering the money and power that is at stake this should come to no surprise. In deliberation of these facts one really must ask how legitimate is any governing body if there is overwhelming disapproval by the constituents that it proposes to direct if not engender? This observation leads to the further question,
“Why does it seem like our profession is being destroyed at the hands of our own colleagues?”
If one really looks closely at this issue, the answer to these questions has to do (at minimum) with maximizing profits for the medical industrial complex.
Today in effect there are no “doctors” in the traditional sense. For thousands of years, physicians acted more as priests/priestess, counselors, teachers, and healers. The origin of the word “doctor” is derived from the Latin verb “docere” which means “to teach.” What we taught was “gnosis” or “knowledge of the heart/inner self”. We did this by engendering in others a higher level of consciousness through empirical methods of exploring the mysteries of ourselves in relationship to the world around us. In the past there were fewer boundaries to our knowledge and we had greater freedom in applying remedies that worked well for our individual patients. It is an undeniable fact that today fewer physicians are actually teaching and are instead adhering to protocols while deferring the mentoring element of our profession to the corporate bureaucracies that are controlling us.
There are no more experts left within conventional medicine for the sheer fact that one could be an esteemed physician, yet if he/she fails to pass a standardized test or complete a redundant MOC exercise, then the doctor in question will no longer be “certified” and therefore unable to practice their art. You could literally be a venerated chairman of a department at one of our nation’s prestigious academic medical institutions, yet if you fail to pass a standardized test or dance to the ABIM’s MOC requirements your career is over regardless of your capabilities as a teacher and healer. It should go without saying that this is a needless concern that weighs heavily upon the soul and therefore health of all practicing physicians.
Some may argue the fact that a doctor should not be allowed to practice if they fail a standardized examination or were unable to complete a required exercise that amounts to little more than busy work. Logic may lead us to this conclusion as we have been conditioned to believe that the “best” doctors are the ones who score the highest on standardized tests. This would be true if we only lived in a linear materialistic word, which we do not. In reality, our best healers are those who can integrate linear logic with an understanding and command of knowledge beyond that which is quantifiably proven.
From a psychological perspective, it was Carl Jung who stated that the smartest pupil is usually not the one with the highest grades. Therefore, our best doctors are the ones who can integrate all of their cognitive capacities which means they would be closer to their own energetic and spiritual origins, and would approach the practice of healing from an integrated, balanced, and holistic perspective.
In a 2012 article by psychiatrist and analytical psychologist Dr. Ronald Ricker entitled Physicians: Endangered Species, he points out what is painfully obvious to most of us in the profession. As a group, we are now on a pathway that will lead to our extinction. (4) The number of physicians in this country is rapidly contracting and specifically within the primary care specialties. There was a time when the majority of physicians studying medicine went into primary care. Today less than one out of four doctors who are governed by the ABIM will actually commit to general practice while virtually all are choosing to further subspecialize, limiting the scope of what they can actually do for their patients. Generally these subspecialties are procedurally oriented practices which promote the following:
1) Fracture and compartmentalize care.
2) Adhere to materialistic principles.
3) Dehumanize the patient to a specific organ system or affliction.
4) Significantly drive up the overall cost of healthcare.
Although detrimental to a more humanistic and holistic approach to patient care this is the direction that the medical industry has forced us to take which is organized and driven under the banner of standardization enforced through testing which has always been married to (and negatively enhanced by) the real threat of financial destitution. This is pure negative reinforcement which many high school students and most college students will recognize as the worst possible form of motivators because it keys off of fear, stress, and hopelessness.
The way that humans respond to this form of abuse is by shutting down and psychologically dissociating, which under severe duress is the essence of mind control. My experience suggests that this is what the vast majority of my peers are actually doing. In a sense, we create a space within ourselves and wall it off from the rest of our soul. Within this space exists these unpleasant activities but it is not the real world which we actually live within. Since I began my medical career, I have always been told by my senior colleagues that testing is a painful reality to our vocational life which exists for its own sake. Virtual every teacher gave me the same advice. Complete the exercise, pass the test, and get on with your life.
Most physicians are scientists at heart and are concerned about staying abreast with our current research while maintaining a viable and enlivened mind, body, and spirit. For the most part we are doing this through love. We also harbor this concern because our actions are linked by karma to our patient’s outcome. Whether a physician is actually cognizant of this fact or not, our heart knows this as an undeniable truth. This is the actual meaning of the Hippocratic Oath, “Primum non nocere.” (First do no harm). Yet, the fact remains that by strictly following evidence based research and the subsequent protocols that the medical industry develops, patients are still being harmed at the direction of the so called experts who are “guiding” us.
Within the time span of my career there are more instances of this type of harm than I can count. So for the majority of us, there is an overt emphasis on being right and doing what is right as most physicians have truly come to understand that as a doctor of medicine—there is really no authority beyond our own self—meaning we cannot blame anyone or anything else for our individual decisions. This means that we must take full responsibilities for our actions and become an expert within whatever realm we freely choose to practice. No external entity (regardless of its level of perceived importance) can absolve us from this responsibility.
Yet we have been conditioned to believe that there is always one right path when in reality we must come to recognize the unique aspects along with the archetypal features of the individual case. Even when confined to the parameters of evidence based material science, in many instances more than one “right” approach can be taken. As time goes by and our wisdom compounds itself through actual clinical experience a wise physician will begin to see healing potentials well beyond the boundaries that single answer evidence based standardized testing protocol encompass. Over time this type of testing becomes absurd.
Although most physicians do not object to a process of testing and credentialing most are at odds with the methods which are being used. It is fair to say that I have never met a physician who took recredentialing or MOC activities seriously because most feel that it is not a credible benchmark for competency as much as it has become a process of taxing and controlling physicians. The undeniable fact remains that there is a direct link to the economic viability of the medical industrial complex and the protocols which we are being conditioned to rigorously follow.
Again, recent polls show our nations physician’s overwhelming disapprove of how they are scrutinized and controlled and it is fair to say that the vast majority of us are literally sick of this abuse. But the coup des gras to this intentional exploitation is when we look at its effects and begin to add up the numbers. As I alluded to before, most physicians are seeking the pathway of least mental resistance with the highest financial return by flocking into the medical subspecialties. Despite the fact that there continues to be a growing shortage of physicians going into primary care, absolutely nothing is being done by the governing auspices of our medical profession to address this issue. It is estimated that there will be a shortage of 61,700 to 91,700 physicians within a decade of which a large percentage of these doctors are needed in primary care. (5)
Furthermore, the leadership of the ABIM (in there infinite wisdom) will tell us in all sincerity that they are only intentional destroying 5% of the established careers of all practicing medical internist on a yearly basis. (6) That’s right only 5%! In the year 2014, over 21% of internal medicine doctors who were recertifying failed the MOC standardized test. There are approximately 71,000 primary care Internal Medicine (adult) physicians practicing in the United States as of 2010 who are directly affected by the actions of the ABIM. (7) This means that we are loosing 3550 sorely needed experienced physicians every year through intentional methods of attrition. Yet only a little over 3000 physicians enter into an internal medicine residency training program throughout our nation’s hospitals and universities, out of which only 20% are choosing to commit to primary care and practice it as their life’s vocation. (8) The rest of these doctors are going on to fellowships and further training in a specific subspecialty (cardiology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, etc.). That means that we are only gaining approximately 600 adult primary care physicians yet we’re loosing 3550 annually. This gives us a net loss of 2950 doctors per year which does not account for additional doctors leaving the work force through retirement. At this rate we are losing almost 30,000 doctors per decade which means that before the end of my student’s career (less than 25 years) there will be no internal medicine doctors left practicing.
The situation in other primary care specialties such as family practice and pediatrics is also becoming desperate and right behind internal medicine with similar MOC attrition rates on recertification and dwindling numbers of young physicians committing to these other vocations. Very soon there will be no medical doctors left in the traditional sense. In part, our pathological faith in spiritless materialistic science and its arid logic, corporately sponsored evidence based medicine, and the publicly traded profit driven medical economy has given the practice of internal medicine its death sentence. The fact remains that many of our colleagues are willful participants in our own professional demise only to be replaced by less comprehensive and potentially dangerous practioners, systems of patient care, and methods of practice.
The “Explosion” of Scientific Information
One of the greatest arguments for MOC is that physicians are forced to keep current with all of the evidence based research which is exponentially compiling itself. Many believe that it may soon be impossible to safely practice medicine in a broader sense because of this compounding information. This is clearly the viewpoint that the medical industry promotes and the excuse given for the institutionalized expression of the negative protocols and controlling energies which are directly leading to the dwindling work force that we now are experiencing. This is especially true within primary care. It is predicted that in the near future patients will no longer have medical doctors as primary physicians as there is now a movement to replace them with nurse practioners or physician’s assistants who have a natural tendency to adhere to industrial protocols even more tenaciously. In the not so distant future the industry plans to replace them with Artificial Intelligence (AI). (9, 10)
Recently, this concept was addressed by Richard & Daniel Susskind in the Harvard Business Review stating;
“We expect that within decades the traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most, but not all, professionals to be replaced by less-expert people, new types of experts, and high-performing systems.” (11)
This is a reality that the industry controlled media is promoting and the corporate medical industrial complex is not only supporting but creating. The underpinning of this future is within the inhuman parameters of transhumanism, which in reality is a future of enslavement and eventually a death sentence for all life on this planet.
Really, did I just say the end of all life on earth? Yes I did, but I am not the only one who can see this as a potential. As Professor Stephen Hawking stated in a BBC interview;
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race…It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate…Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.” (12)
Visionary and entrepreneur Elon Musk is also skeptical of AI and in agreement with Professor Hawking. He is quoted in the same article stating that AI is “our biggest existential treat.”
For many compelling reasons it doesn’t take a visionary to understand that the idea of human beings seeking medical advice from corporate controlled robots (either human or artificial) is one of the worst ideas ever imagined.
Considering the idea of AI as healer we are confronted with a very concerning fact. Human beings do not think like robots simple because we were not intentionally designed to be like them. For all of the technological breakthroughs in AI we still do not have a system that can think outside of binary parameters. Even our most evolved quantum AI works within binary principles which can be equated with our capacities of sensing and thinking. Yet we also have the capacities for emotional intelligence and even a deeper level of intelligence which is intuitive and spiritual which our current form of AI constructed within our linear and material level of consciousness will never be capable of achieving (for a detailed discussion please Chapter 8 Alchemical Unification of the Opposites, pages 142-144 in Beyond the Soul’s Meridian). If we were to look for a mythological metaphor as to how computers think within a joyless encyclopedic and dispirited realm, the example would be Ahriman, otherwise known as Satan or Mephistopheles.
Yet for some bizarre reason the medical industry continues to hold members of our profession to standards that are impossible to achieve while constantly shuffling the deck of evidence based information. This shifting data base is a derivative of their own corporately sponsored studies which may or may not be directly beneficial to us therapeutically as much as it is a vehicle for generating shareholder profit and amassing wealth. I for one am not in the least embarrassed to state this—we cannot be held responsible for knowing everything that is published or posted within our vast libraries of information. Yet, in reality we really do not have to. That is what libraries are for, to be used as a resource for this type of information. There is never a day that goes by where I am not referencing resources which keep me current with this type of fluid information. Furthermore, very few scientific breakthroughs are actually occurring. Although protocols shift based upon relatively superficial research, the conceptual scientific principles of this research remain relatively constant.
That said, staying current and safely wielding our scientific knowledge is a primary concern for all physicians and one that most of us struggle with throughout our entire career. Yet, if we can learn to embrace our humanity we will create an inner peace within our self and resolve our internal struggles which specifically have to do with forces that have conditioned our ego to believe that it must be held to inhuman standards. Through more humane and holistic processes of learning we can collapse the void manifested by the mental abuse and psychological brutality that the negative forms of inhumane negative conditioning inevitably create.
One of the primary fallacies that must be overcome is that our brain is not our only center of consciousness and therefore intelligence. Furthermore, the brain does not work like a computer hard drive storing information within its biological cellular matrix. (13) This limited model of human intelligence is not only obsolete but simply wrong. (14) Our conscious is tuned to an ethereal information field which all life is keyed into. In a sense, this intelligence field is our planet’s energetic biosphere. We appear to have within ourselves multiple loci of consciousness throughout our body which we are to a certain degree consciously and subconsciously aware of. These loci emanate energetic fields which manifest our form and function while acting as a vehicle for our consciousness (soul-spirit) to experience earthbound life. Without these organizing energies we would literally not be in this plane of existence and our bodies would be reduced to dust.
In the not so distant past, our form of education was more humanistic and it was far more likely for a student to actually have a significant relationship that would profoundly influence them in a positive way. My entire education has been punctuated by these types of human interactions and my medical education was no exception. As a second year medical student struggling with the sequential barrages of information thrown at me, I could have never survived the onslaught if I did not have other humans to teach me how to deal with this information and become a doctor.
One of my greatest mentors was my pathology professor who seemed to have long ago conquered the existential dragon of mental enslavement. Beside the fact that he was one of the most gracious and understanding human beings that I have ever met, he was completely at ease conveying highly complex information, breaking it down always into simple conceptual principles. He seemed to do this effortlessly, projecting a sense of reverence, vitality, and mystery to the subject material that we were considering. He was also very confident in his knowledge and could accurately figure out any question that confronted him. He was quite a mystery to me because I was becoming consciously aware that this was the type of doctor that I must become. Yet I had no idea on how to get to that point.
Throughout the end of the third and beginning of my forth year I volunteered to do a number of autopsy calls with him. I did this for many reasons, but specifically to discover his method of “knowing.” So, on a warm sunny late July afternoon I was called in to do what would be my final postmortem examination with him. I arrived somewhat early and while I was waiting I watched him enter the room while giving me a very curious look. He did not say anything at the time and we proceeded on with a very fascinating case. Then just before finishing, he asked me to meet him in his office after the case was completed.
So, after concluding our task, I met him back in his office. He was sitting comfortably behind his desk reading some papers when I entered. I closed the door and he looked up while gesturing for me to sit down. He then stated something to me that caught me completely off guard as I heard him say, “Paul, what the hell are you doing here?” This was quite a loaded question, but I caught the gist of it immediately. What was I doing there on this beautiful summer Saturday afternoon in this cold morgue away from my lovely fiancé and life as it was manifesting itself through the glorious expression of creation’s abundance?
So I told him the truth. I was overwhelmed by the information that was being thrown at me and I really didn’t think I would make a “good” physician unless I could figure out the mystery of managing all of it. I also stated how much I admired his approached to medicine and I was more than fascinated by his command of medical knowledge and the ease that he could recall and use it. I think that my answer took him aback, but as I talked I could see him beginning to convey a smile. He then laughed out loud stating something I didn’t expect,
“Paul, I’m an idiot. You see this book behind us?”
He was pointing to the Robbins: Pathological Basis of Disease doorstop-tome that anyone studying conventional medicine must become intimately familiar with. As I answered affirmatively he said,
“Well take any paragraph out of this book. I can read it five of six times and I would still have a really hard time recalling what it says.”
I thought, “Really, that’s how I am.”
It also made me laugh inside recalling how my best friend in medical school would continuously stress over this problem of memory retention, constantly referring to his “leaky brain” as the reason for his lamentations. I then answered,
“Well then how do you know so much?
He stated simply,
“Basic science.”
He then went on to convey to me that everything can be broken down into primary conceptual ideas that science upholds, and from there everything can be figured out. That was his secret—basic science. That, and of course, transforming all this seeming random and insignificant information into the parameters of a human being.
As it turned out, he was the first but not the last of my mentors to tell me this. He then conveyed to me a most sublime expression and told me to stop worrying, that I would be a great doctor and that he would give me a fantastic endorsement—but on one condition. That I spend as much time with my beautiful soon to be wife and to get on with my life and the primal endeavor of living it.
In the end, I realized that this is not just advice given to me but wisdom that needs to be embraced by the entire vocation as we all must be allowed the freedom to focus on our humanity and embrace it as we see fit. The freedom to pursue our interests and to integrate them within our healing principles and in all of the aspects of our life, solely make us better physicians. A major part of this is collapsing the boundaries that our traditional education and corporate conditioning has created within our minds.
The most essential place to start in our vocation’s psychological and spiritual recovery is to remove all of the negative reinforcement and abuse that is now ingrained within the process of our education and credentialing. There is absolutely no reason why it has to be this way. It is said that we spend the first half of their life learning nomenclature through a limitation world view of linear separation. As we mature, a truly wise person who is free to pursue truth will devote the second half integrating it all back into interconnected holistic vision.
Currently, conventional medical education acts as a barrier to holistic healing, inhibits a conceptual understanding of our true energetic and spiritual origins, and discourages a comprehensive understanding of the full complement of our nature in regards to our body, soul, and spirit’s inter-connectivity and universal interactions.
Redemption for All Concerned
There should never be a debate as to who is in control of another human being’s life. Certainly there can be guidelines and even rules that should be considered, and when appropriate, respected. Yet, when it comes to healing (which involves matters of the human soul) nothing is ever valid unless it is done through love and free will. It should go without saying that the draconian hierarchy which is the embodiment of corporate controlled medicine has very little if any capacity to heal unless it is married to higher human principles. It is a proven fact that if left to their own devices, corporations are non-sustainable entities that will eventually consume themselves. They solely exist is to generate profit and limit liability making them extremely poor vehicles to manage and deliver holistic and compassionate medical care. This fact is clearly illustrated when one applies the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) criteria to these abstract corporate entities. When objectively comparing the DSM criteria to publicly traded companies we get the following:
1) Callous disregard for the feelings of others.
2) Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.
3) Reckless disregard for the safety of others.
4) Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conniving others for profit.
5) Incapacity to experience guilt.
6) Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.
7) Aggressiveness.
When these behaviors constellate themselves within an individual person, they would be recognized as having Antisocial Personality disorder and diagnosed as a sociopath. (15) Unfortunately, recent Supreme Court decisions have deemed corporations as “human beings” giving them many of the same rights as individuals despite the fact that they are devoid of a human conscience because the personal human element has been intentionally eliminated. Although companies may exist for many reasons, once it is publicly traded, corporate by-law protects the investors so that CEOs must make decisions which maximize profit despite the human suffering and negative ramifications that these decisions may cause—even within its own internal structure. Although the ABIM is not publicly traded and was initially designed as a not-for-profit organization, it is clear that it is now representing the interests of corporate backers and not the vast majority of physicians that it was once entrusted to promote and credential.
Furthermore, evidence suggests that the ABIM employs lobbyists who have influenced congress to embed legislation that has made MOC activities and ABIM credentialing mandatory for any physician to be fully compensated by any form of federally subsidized insurance. (16) Evidence also indicates that slush funds exist which have dramatically inflated the salaries of its board members. As to where these revenues are coming from, it is somewhat of a mystery, but as it is stated;
“The tree shall be known by the fruit that it bears.”
All of the ABIM’s actions are now in direct support of corporate sponsored agendas. Therefore, it is very likely that corporate money is being channeled into the ABIM to do the industry’s bidding for them. For many reasons, looking for a political solution to this problem is highly unlikely as it is literally impossible to negotiate with the likes of a sociopath or a stooge who is being controlled by one.
In the end, the only effective argument for recredentialing medical doctors is to protect the public. Although logic suggests that testing physicians is the answer, in practice, the way that we are now tested and perpetually scrutinized is highly counter-productive and actually dangerous on multiple levels. Many students are now succumbing to medications such as amphetamines to enhance there testing, academic, and clinical performance throughout medical school. A recent study suggests that as many as 20% of all medical students may be impaired by performance enhancing medications. (17) Contrary to popular belief, intelligence is not enhanced by these substances; awareness is just shifted into rote automatonic thinking at the expense of our empathetic and intuitive capacities (See Beyond the Soul’s Meridian, Chapter 12, The Mystery of the Cross, pages 244-245). In fact, we have entire generations of students now using prescription medications to learn and to get through life. If something does not drastically change within our educational system, even those who remain physicians will have a tendency for more robotic thinking and far less creative and empathetic capacities.
This argument of having the ABIM protect the public from physician’s incompetence is a hollow one. In fact it is quite the opposite. Above everything else, the essential role of the primary care physician is to be an advocate for their patient’s health and well being. In this day and age the comprehensive and holistic practitioner is now at odds with many of the corporate sponsored protocols and products that are now being promoted. For instance, if I listened to the alleged experts and followed their advice I would be actively testing and treating otherwise healthy children for elevated cholesterol and committing them to very harmful statin medications with no statistically proven benefit. This type of formulaic approach to medicine is not only indefensible and asinine but very dangerous. The main reason that I can see recommendations like this is to increase corporate revenues— although there may be other reasons that are far more insidious—such as keeping the populace fearful and actually sick by turning perfectly healthy children into patients with “hyperlipidemia.” This example is just the tip of an iceberg.
Hopefully the future for physicians is not as bleak as it currently looks. There is always the potential for change. As of 2015 an alternative board called the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS) was created to streamline the process of credentialing making it fair and relevant. (18) Most importantly it restores tenure allowing physicians to pursue their interests as they best see fit. The goal of the NBPAS is to reinstate the importance of individually chosen CME while abolishing industry determined MOC and redundant standardized testing. Although the actions of the NBPAS are promising, few hospitals and payers have yet to recognize its validity. Of course, this would change overnight if the vast majority of us would simply refuse to participate in MOC and recertification examinations. If this happened we would see how quickly incentives for these types of activities would change from negative to positive.
We truly are the co-creators of our own reality and have always had the power to take back control—that is if we can transform ourselves into a more holistic way of thinking, living, and healing. In this ascended state, which begins within our own soul, we will turn pain, isolation, negativity, and competition into joy, sympathy and cooperation. We can literally spin straw into gold.
And what is wrong with that? Taking the lead from Finland, a country which is widely recognized as having the world’s best educational system, we can easily see how holistic teaching, positive attitudes, and cooperative thinking would greatly enhance the physical, mental, and spiritual health of our nation’s medical students and practitioners along with the health and safety of our patients. (19) Their form of education de-emphasizes rote memorization and minutial facts while emphasizing conceptual and creative thinking. In fact, they are doing away with individual subjects all together taking an integrative and holistic approach because they found that it works better than anything else. This form of education is not just a method but a basic human imperative. Furthermore, there is no profession in Finland that is more revered than teaching outside of the vocation of healing. In Finland, doctors are still revered above all else.
It is time that we take control of our lives and step forward into the role that we are ordained to fulfill. We are truly here to spearhead the global transformation of consciousness and healing that is now taking place. The path to get there is extraordinarily simple and it is exactly what my mentor had told me all along. Focus on the basic concepts, integrate them with the world around you, and love the life that you were meant to live.
References
1) http://www.changeboardrecert.com/
3) Kurt Eichenwald, Newsweek, A Certified Medical Controversy, 4/15/2015 http://www.newsweek.com/certified-medical-controversy-320495
4) Dr. Ronald Ricker, Physicians: An Endangered Species, Huffington Post, March 20, 2012 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronald-ricker/doctor-shortage_b_1346580.html
5) https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/newsreleases/458074/2016_workforce_projections_04052016.html
6) https://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/primary/pcwork1/index.html
7) Dr. Robert Wachter, The ABIM Controversy: A Brief History of Board Certification and MOC, The Health Care Blog, July 2, 2015, “Another point made by the critics is that the failure rate on some ABIM MOC exams has increased, further evidence (to them) that the Board is actually trying to fail hardworking doctors in order to make money. The cut score for passing is an absolute standard determined through a sophisticated process that follows best practices in the testing industry. Once a cut score is set, pass rates for first-time takers may vary from time to time, but approximately 95% percent of physicians ultimately pass ABIM’s MOC exams, though it sometimes takes a couple of tries.” http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2015/07/02/the-abim-controversy-a-brief-history-of-board-certification-and-moc/
9) Erza Klein, How Robots will Replace Doctors, Washington Post, October 1, 2011.
10) Louise Chan, Will Robots in Health Care Make Doctors Obsolete?, High Tech Times, February 9, 2016. http://www.techtimes.com/articles/131870/20160209/will-robots-in-healthcare-make-doctors-obsolete.htm
11) Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind, Technology will Replace many Doctors, Lawyers, and other Professionals, Harvard Business Review, October 11, 2016. https://hbr.org/2016/10/robots-will-replace-doctors-lawyers-and-other-professionals
12) Rory Cellan-Jones, Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind. BBC News, December 2, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540
13) Robert Epstein, The Empty Brain, Aeon, https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
14) Roni Jacobson, Memories May Not Live in Neurons’ Synapses, Scientific American, April 1, 2015. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/memories-may-not-live-in-neurons-synapses/
15) http://www.politicususa.com/2012/04/19/corporations-people-psychopaths-2-2.html
16) http://www.newsweek.com/2015/06/05/medical-mystery-making-sense-abims-financial-report-334772.html
17) http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/778843
19) http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0318-doyle-finnish-schools-20160318-story.html
Beyond The Soul's Meridian 