In a society that values convenience over sustainability, profit over people, individuality over community, it’s sadly no surprise that our healthcare system is no exception to these qualities.

To go through the reasons why and how our healthcare system got to where it is today would be too long an article or require a semester-long course! One of those reasons is through centuries of individuals and the collective seeing health as something to gain or conquer rather than an understanding that health is something we all already have.

We’ve long seen our environment as a constant threat leading to a need to fight against it.

As a community pharmacist, also known as a retail pharmacist (just the shift in name is indicative of the shift of mentality), I am usually on the back end of people’s healthcare journey. Whether it’s a brand new prescription coming from a tough night at the hospital or a routine monthly one, the pharmacist is the last healthcare professional you see before going home with medication.

Our healthcare system operates very specialized now, meaning healthcare providers are trained in a specific area of the body or medicine. For example, you have a doctor for your heart, one for your lungs, your immune system, brain, and so on. While we’ve had amazing advances in all areas of medicine, this only-looking-at-one-body-system-at-a-time technique has led us further away from a holistic whole-body view of a human being. Add on top of that the lack of nutritional training in medical and pharmacy schools, and you have our current situation!

I see and hear about the consequences of this incomplete view of healthcare daily, with people unsure of what medication they are taking and how to take it. They can’t track all the different doctors prescribing a new “fix it” medicine to a very specific-sounding problem.

Let’s say you have high blood pressure, so your primary care doctor easily prescribes you medication for it with just a quick mention of “watch your sugar and salt intake”. In a few months, you start having trouble breathing, maybe some wheezing (ironically this can sometimes happen as a result of a side effect from certain types of blood pressure medication). If it’s something the primary care doctor can’t prescribe a common inhaler for, they will refer you to a pulmonologist who specializes in the lungs. And as the person’s symptoms further/continue without addressing what could be an underlying issue affecting all the body’s systems differently, here begins the ever confusing journey of doctor’s appointments, costly tests, and lengthy medication lists. (No wonder no one is ever happy to see me at the pharmacy!)

Not to mention, the compounding side effects lead doctors to prescribe more medication to treat side effects from other medicines! You would be surprised just how common that is.

One recent story comes to mind to show this in real life. A few months ago, a distressed wife came by the pharmacy to pick up a steroid medication for her husband, who was experiencing various symptoms that the doctors couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. They had already run many tests, and everything was coming back negative from autoimmune to cancer. The doctors decided to prescribe a steroid that helps reduce general inflammation in the body to help with overall symptom relief, not treating anything. How do you treat something you don’t even know what it is?

When I politely asked the wife what her husband was experiencing, his symptoms were general indeed: lack of energy, no appetite, extreme weight loss, and skin rashes, amongst others. My response- “If you don’t mind me asking, has your husband been depressed or anxious lately?”

You should have seen her face. Surprise. Mixed with confusion. “No one has suggested that to us. We’ve been to so many doctors, and not once has someone asked about his mental state,” she responded. If I didn’t have to uphold my professionalism, my jaw would have dropped to the floor along with shaking my fist at the system that supposedly calls itself healthCARE.

I myself was in disbelief that not one healthcare provider had thought to mention this as a possibility of connection to all his symptoms. I digress. I continued to suggest they get a psychiatric evaluation (another example of being referred to yet another doctor).

I’ve seen the ending to this story so many times. Hopefully, he does get an evaluation, but even then, most psychiatrists will simply prescribe medication to treat another problem they think is isolated and send him on his way. It should be noted that I’m not against medication! It helps in numerous ways, and I am not stating that medication should not be used.

I am simply zooming out from my perspective to point out a more significant issue here- that a large majority of the population is not getting the type of healthcare they need in order to sustain health long term. Instead, they get lost in the whirlwind of misinformation and confusion about their bodies, and true healing is hardly ever achieved.

The solution to this would require a massive systemic change. I’m not sure of any fast turnaround. For today, I hope these words create an energetic push in a direction that changes our view of healthcare. A direction that values people over profit, community over isolation, and love (above) all.