The Medicalisation of Life

"Medicalisation is the process of turning more people into patients," writes H. Gilbert Welch. "And it’s a big part of the reason why medical care costs so much.”

“Here’s a question that’s not being asked in the healthcare debate: How much medical care do we want in our lives? It’s something we should be discussing,” writes H. Gilbert Welch in the Opinion section of today’s Los Angeles Times.

“Start with the two life events we all experience, birth and death. My profession has gotten pretty good at terrifying (and operating on) pregnant women during what should be one of the greatest experiences in life,” writes Welch. “And we are equally proficient at dragging the elderly through all sorts of misery on the road to death.”

An internist at the Department of Veterans Affairs in White River Junction, Vermont, USA, and professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Welch has a few choice words for the medical profession at a time when the United States is as polarised as it has ever been about healthcare’s place in society. As the title of his book—Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why—clearly indicates, Welch is a contrarian. His prognosis of the spread of medicalisation and its role in escalating the cost of healthcare, however, is spot on. ”Medicalisation is the process of turning more people into patients. It encourages more of us to be anxious about our health and undermines our confidence in our own bodies. It leads people to have too much treatment—and some of them are harmed by it. And it’s a big part of the reason why medical care costs so much.”

That is especially true in the United States, but Europe is not immune to this trend. I highly recommend that you read the full article.

For more information on healthcare reform’s tortuous path in the United States, read “Med-Tech, Reform and the Mood in the US” in this month’s issue of European Medical Device Technology.

Tags: H. Gilbert Welch, LA Times, medicalization