I trust Western medicine but only on my own terms. As long as the buck stops here, I am grateful for options Western medicine provides.  I am glad for its diagnostic capabilities, for the possibilities of surgery, medications, trauma care, vaccines. I am grateful that people spent years developing specialized skills in case I should ever choose to make use of them.

The pressure to conform one’s thinking to existing pathways is more intense than ever right now. In the states, you are supposed to find Fauci infallible, or find Trump infallible, and on down the line. This is to say that not having unflagging trust in the medical profession doesn’t make me an “anti-vaxxer” or prone to the sway of conspiracy theories. As there are plenty of legitimate reasons to distrust the pharmaceutical industry, being skeptical of it doesn’t either. Nor does distrust in either make me “anti-science,” the practice of science having many more caveats than most of us appreciate.

Though medical doctors will often be able to offer some kind of solution for a problem you present, sometimes it’s a strikingly rutted, defective one. It might create collateral damage. It could have unknown long-term consequences. It might not be all that effective or promising. It could also be prohibitively expensive in the short- or long-term. It’s not that medical doctors don’t have good things to offer, but the offerings are in fact very limited. The large percentage of people who seek alternative treatments every year know this from personal experience.

As Abraham Maslow observed, he who is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail. We might apply this statement to the current crisis, where medical doctors are in charge of how we solve our coronavirus problem. They admit no solutions to the problems we face besides their own kind. Their points of impacting the virus, based on a blinkered way of viewing the human body, are their “nails.” Collateral damage is irrelevant to this way of thinking. However, it is not necessary for you to think precisely the way they think.

There are many tools besides hammers (as my core articles show), and many proven ways to create wellness for yourself. However, the choice to look at the tool chest of techniques for achieving wellness is yours and yours alone.