The End-of-Road Choices of Two Doctors
An elderly Western-medicine specialist, after developing malignant lymphoma, resolutely chose TCM treatment. An elderly TCM specialist, after developing esophageal cancer, resolutely abandoned TCM and chose Western medicine. These two old specialists—one was my patient, the other was the father of an online acquaintance. Having practiced medicine all their lives, they came to know exactly what "medicine" is. The more you understand something, the less you trust it. At the critical moment of life and death, the TCM doctor chose Western medicine, and the Western doctor chose TCM. It probably has much to do with the vast impressions each gathered during their years of practice.
Medicine is still very immature—both TCM and Western medicine. It is far from reaching the level humanity expects; there is no doctor in this world who can effortlessly cure major disease. "Incurable," "difficult to treat," "dies in XX days," "longest survival XX months"—since TCM and Western medical writings preserve so much of this language, it must be experience derived from clinicians' tally of innumerable cases.
There are exceptions outside the norm, but the case report is always the case report. In evidence-based medicine, the case report can only be level-five evidence, carrying little persuasive or scientific value. So those who directly engage with medicine are, on the contrary, less superstitious about it than ordinary folk. I study TCM, and often must patiently and earnestly persuade some die-hard TCM fans to abandon their superstitious attitude toward TCM.
I believe I am not the only one who has seen with their own eyes that medicine itself kills people in droves. Otherwise why, from ancient times to today, has there always been the saying that "quacks kill people"? If doctors truly went on strike, the fatality rate in hospitals would probably drop a great deal.
How to make oneself accept the idea that medicine has limitations, abandon superstition about medicine, choose wisely, and consciously resist over-treatment—this is a rather brain-taxing problem. There are truly too many patients whose superstitious clinging to treatment itself ultimately shortens their survival. Few people can face death calmly and unhurriedly. Therefore, at the final moment, even a straw is believed capable of saving a life.
Treatment is addictive; it becomes a heart addiction the patient cannot shake, while not treating leaves the patient trembling with fear. Giving up at the final moment also leaves the family carrying immense moral condemnation. Ever since medicine began, the final exit of life has been truly hard; one wants to leave with style, yet meets with all kinds of entreaties to stay, kept behind to endure one painful day after another.
My trust in medicine is limited. The more I study medicine, the less I believe it can help with major disease. I believe that in the future, the more important field in which medicine benefits humanity should be preventive medicine. Intervening in healthy and sub-healthy people to prevent terminal disease—that should be the priority area for health-care development.