Welcome to the World of Postmodern Medicine
Dr. Erica Li is a pediatrician practicing in the state of Washington, as well as teaching medical students from three medical schools and interns from four residency programs.
Li recently published a chilling piece in Substack about the current state of medicine in this country, which she referred to as being “postmodern.”
Postmodern medicine seems to have a particular foothold in the West, especially in the United States, where it has become institutionalized. It is relatively new but is embedded in multiple American medical societies and medical schools. While it leverages the same technologies as Modern medicine, thereby superficially resembling it, it fundamentally seeks to dismantle Modern medicine’s underlying philosophy.While Postmodern medicine is being propagated across American medical schools through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracies, nothing exemplifies Postmodernity more than the gender ideology that drives American “gender-affirming” model of care.I wish to strongly advocate for Modern medicine and urge readers to resist the ideological shift towards the Postmodernizing or “queering” of my profession. It is crucial to clarify that I am a steadfast supporter of LGBT civil rights, as I support civil rights for all Americans, and I strongly advocate for high-quality Modern medical care for sexual minorities.However, I reject the overmedicalization of children propagated by many gender activists. At its core, Postmodern medicine is as far removed from Modern medicine as witch-burning. It poses serious risks to patient welfare and should be vehemently resisted.
While Li focuses on the “queering of medicine,” Politico just published a glowing piece on changes that hospitals are making in the name of the pseudoscience of “climate change.” The piece notes that the Biden team is doing its own part to push hospitals to overhaul their practices; given the administration’s numerous failures, its attempt to interfere with decisions being made at hospitals that impact patient care is disturbing, indeed.
The drive to reimagine anesthesia is part of a broader if belated effort to decarbonize U.S. health care, from the operating room to the cafeteria to the gardens and grounds. It’s a push spurred on by both medical professionals and Washington policymakers, who feel increased pressure to act amid the dangers of climate change and who acknowledge health care has been slow to engage on sustainability.The health sector is responsible for 8.5 percent of U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and ozone — an outsized impact compared to the rest of the world. (Globally, health care systems contribute roughly 4.6 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions.) Without huge new efforts, the U.S. will have trouble reaching its ambitious emissions reduction goals.Within American health care, hospitals are the biggest source of emissions, not to mention generators of enormous amounts of nonrecyclable trash from all the single-use, disposable devices and supplies that head swiftly into landfills and incinerators.
Approaches to anesthesia will be based on climate change assertions that have not been borne out over the past three decades and are not based on real global weather pattern considerations.
Much of the reason for the use of disposable items is concern about the spread of germs. And while there are sound and practical reasons for considering sanitizing and disinfection, I am not convinced that the people in charge of “sustainability” will be as concerned about humans as about virtue signaling. Especially as they seem unwilling to consider reasonable concerns.
…[A]ctivists and sustainability teams want more. More tools. More metrics. More financial help.Some advocates would like to see the federal government impose tough regulations and requirements to force change. Others suggest building incentives into Medicare payments to hospitals, which would give a government-imprimatur on health care greening without creating a new mandate. Climate benchmarks could be included in HHS’ “conditions for participation,” the practices that health providers must follow to be eligible for Medicare or Medicaid payments.Any such steps, though, would be challenging in today’s political climate, with Republicans strongly opposed to efforts to the Biden administration’s efforts to tackle climate change.
Hopefully, the policies will continue to be challenged, as they are based on myth.
Finally, postmodern medicine focuses on the bottom line and ‘statistics’ showing how awesome it is. However, it appears patients are being pushed into hospice early at HCA Healthcare Facilities to improve the numbers. HCA operates 182 hospitals in the U.S. and the U.K. and is the nation’s largest hospital chain.
Now, new criticisms are arising related to HCA’s palliative and end-of-life care for patients, according to some physicians and nurses who have worked in its facilities. They say HCA officials press staff to persuade families of ailing patients to initiate such care, as Salas says she experienced with her daughter.Although this can harm patients by withdrawing lifesaving treatments, the push can benefit HCA two ways, the doctors and nurses said, and an internal hospital document confirms. It reduces in-hospital mortality rates, a closely watched quality measure, and can free up a hospital bed more quickly for HCA, potentially generating more insurance reimbursements from a new patient.
I have had three significant hospital stays in my life and have been grateful for the benefits of modern medicine. Unfortunately, as I enter into the next phase, I dread what may await me.
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