Great strides have been made in modern medicine in the application of technology and research studies into the nature of disease and its treatment. The price we have paid for this valuable development is, to a large extent, the loss of humanity and the personal face-to-face meeting with the personal physician.

With few exceptions, the traditional family doctor, who knew his patient from an early age into old age, who could assess the value of specialist intervention and provide the support and guidance needed by the individual has been lost.

One Patient, Though Many Doctors

Many practices now are group practices where the patient may see any one of many doctors who have to refer to computer records to establish much of their basic medical history. However, these records do not reflect the psychological, social and family concerns which are all part of the health and wellbeing of the individual. This fear of the loss of the general practitioner was seen over 75 years ago by Lord Horder, and today his worst fears have proved reality.

Improve Your Health & Wellbeing

For this reason, I am in the process of writing a short book which will guide the reader in ways to improve their health and wellbeing to supplement and complement the medical care they receive. It focuses very much on becoming more responsible for our health. It will highlight how little research and concern the medical community has had for the true nature of health and well-being, but has been driven for the past hundred years, more and more into studying pathology and sickness and its treatment rather than developing a better understanding of how to support the health of the individual and society.

It highlights the fact that spending more on medicine does not correlate to the improved health of the nation, as seen by the fact that America spends almost double on healthcare and medicine than Spain, yet in the ranking of healthiest nations, Spain is number one and America comes out at number 34.!

In the UK we have seen more and more investment in our NHS, but this has not led to the ever-increasing health of the nation. We have been funding not a National Health Service but a National Sickness Service, which by all standards is outstanding however, Health Promotion and Education has been seriously neglected to our detriment.

What Defines Health?

Curiously, even today the definition and understanding of what health is has not been addressed, and it is the author’s view that until we better understand the origins and source of health little or no progress will be made in developing a healthier society.

The book will offer practical guidelines for improving our health based on half a century of working in the healthcare profession. I hope it will help you become “Your Own Best Doctor of Health and Happiness!”

Watch This Space…

Watch this space, for the announcement of its publication and meanwhile work on helping yourself to better health. Health is the most powerful protection against disease! And that isn’t an oxymoron!

Michael Lingard BSc.(Hons) DO.

Orthopath, Buteyko Educator, Plantrician