Coleman’s 1st Law of Medicine: “If you are receiving treatment for an existing disease and you develop new symptoms, then, until proved otherwise, you should assume that the new symptoms are caused by the treatment you are receiving.
Coleman’s 2nd Law of Medicine: “There is no point in having tests done unless the results will affect your treatment.”
If your doctor wants you to have tests done, ask him how the results will affect your treatment. if the results of the tests won’t affect the treatment you receive (and aren’t needed as a baseline against which to compare future tests), then the tests aren’t worth having.
Tests and investigations are often regarded (by both doctors and patients) as being harmless. They aren’t. There is no such thing as minor surgery (Coleman’s 11th Law of Medicine), and even taking blood is an operation. There are dangers inherent in every test that is performed. And there is, in addition, the danger that the result will be wrong and that your doctors will treat the test rather than treating you.
Coleman’s 3rd Law of Medicine: “If the treatment doesn’t work, then you should consider the possibility that the diagnosis might be wrong. This is particularly true when several treatments have been tried.”
Coleman’s 4th Law of Medicine: “Screening examinations and check-ups are more profitable for doctors than for patients.”
Coleman’s 5th Law of Medicine: “It is doctors, not patients, who need annual check-ups.”
Along with cancer and circulatory disease, doctors are now one of the three most important causes of death and injury. Incompetent or careless doctors cause a horrifying amount of death or injury.
Coleman’s 6th Law of Medicine: “Hospitals are not suitable places for sick people. If you must go into one, you should get out as quickly as you can.”
Coleman’s 7th Law of Medicine: “There are fashions in medicine just as much as there are fashions in clothes. The difference is that whereas badly conceived fashions in clothes are only likely to embarrass you, ill-conceived fashions in medicine may kill you. The fashions in medicine have, by and large, as much scientific validity as the fashions in the clothes industry.”
Coleman’s 8th Law of Medicine: “The medical establishment will always take decisions on health matters which benefit industry, government and the medical profession, rather than patients. And the government will always take decisions on health matters which benefit the State rather than individual patients. What you read, hear or see about medicine and health matters will have more to do with the requirements of the pharmaceutical industry and the government, than the genuine needs of patients.”
Coleman’s 9th Law of Medicine: “Doctors and nurses know little or nothing about staying healthy. In particular, doctors and nurses know nothing useful about food, diet and healthy eating. (Sadly, the same is true of nutritionists and dieticians.)”
Coleman’s 10th Law of Medicine: “There are no holistic healers. There are only holistic patients.”
A truly holistic approach to staying healthy and treating illness depends upon using a wide range of possible remedies; treating the patient’s signs and symptoms (rather than his test results) and combining all types of alternative and orthodox medicine.
Coleman’s 11th Law of Medicine: “There is no such thing as minor surgery.”
Some operations are more complicated than others. Some take longer to perform. Some are more dangerous. All surgery should be taken seriously. It is never safe to describe surgery as ‘minor’.
Coleman’s 12th Law of Medicine: “Some patients will always be treated more equally than others.”
Today it is the elderly who are treated least equally.
