.... and now it's hot like lava on my mind.  If this was just an incident or two, I would dismiss it as an exception, limited to a particular individual.  Instead, I am constantly reminded that doctors in the 21st century continue to work within the constraints (and often do their part in supporting) the barbaric practices of the dark ages.  Im talking about misinformation and at times negligence that occurs between doctor and patient, or self-imposed by the patient himself - all in the name of pleasing a God.  This has furthermore, leaked its way even to institutions of medical learning, to poison future doctors' objectivity while it's still budding.  

Where does this ignorance come from?  From some of the brightest minds, no less!  The concepts I'm discussing here have originated from docs who were and still are my favorite educators.  The ones who are some of the most accomplished not only in school, but of great respect and status in the community.  Frankly, they are some of my favorite professors.  That's why it hurts double, to realize that the pre-scientific fear of the elements of nature, and their iron-age explanations will affect the way even these amazing doctors talk to, and treat their patients.  Some examples, spoken in class:

1)  Masturbation causes impotence, and promiscuity will severely damage your health even if you use protection.
2)  WHO's drive to promote condom use in third world countries is not a desperate effort to thwart the spread of AIDS, or to put food on the table of indigent families who already have too many mouths to feed!  Oh no, it's a first world conspiracy to limit the number of "inferior" peoples being born!

This is not to say that there needs to be much teaching in regards of placing mythology over public health.  The soil is fertile for medical concusions which may serve big daddy in the sky, rather than the patient.  After a discussion of pharmacognosy (the sources of pharmaceuticals that we use), we were given a chance to talk about why studying it is important.  One of my classmates who happens to be very bright, and also happens to be muslim, had this to say:
"It is important to study pharmacology because it teaches us about where our drugs come from.  For example, today I learned that insulin may come from swine, and it is something I now must consider."

Consider??  Even if we imagine the best, that she will go beyond religious superstition (it's not even the actual religion, since the Qur'an probably discussed eating pig, not injecting it parenterally), and decides to prescribe it as treatment to her diabetic patients.  What of her guilty conscience?  Can you imagine doing what's right (saving a life) and all the time thinking that your true creator, your purpose of living HATES you for it?

This is not a Filipino problem, but a worldwide epidemic of faith-based ignorance.  Consider the US, and it's protection of religious rights.  A child whose parents are Jehova's witnesses may be denied an emergency blood transfusion on the basis of his parents' beliefs. In other words, if God tells me to sacrifice a child in his honor, I go to jail for murder.  But if it's written in a book, then the parents may FORCE me, the physician, to sacrifice a child, or ELSE I go to jail!

There are some values that are so basic and universal, even animals understand them.  Life over death.  Comfort over suffering.  And when it comes to issues of what we eat, and who we fuck all western religions have waged (and so far, won) a battle to increase death over life, to promote suffering over comfort.  Sex is not a safe activity.  As physicians, we need to ensure our patients understand the risks of promiscuity.  But to ENSURE that understanding by INCREASING that risk (by discouraging condom use as a Western conspiracy, and making abortions illegal and forcing women into getting their abortifactants in online chatrooms and bulletin boards - which i visited, and found with horror that they are often given partial medication and instruction on phamaceutical abortion) - that is the height of unethical.  Surely, if we found out that the government is lacing illegal drugs with pesticide, we would not defend it by saying that people shouldn't do drugs in the first place.  And yet when it comes to increasing the risks of Sex, our society defends it using religious moral-babble. 

And for the record, there SHOULD be freedom of belief.  If someone wants to believe that their house cat is the incarnation of Mohatma Ghandi, it's ok.  But if they bring that cat to a human hospital, a physician should refer that person to a veterinarian.  And, thankfully, we can still inject Jewish and Muslim children with insulin if they need it.  Although I wonder if there are some fanatics out there who would deny a child that lifesaving medicine on the grounds of  21st century BC and 8th century AD science, respectively.  I postulate that the REASON why the insulin thing has not been a subject of hot legal debate (as opposed to blood transfusions and contraceptive family planning) is that Judaism and Islam are still looked down upon in Christian societies.  If swinophobia was in the New Testament, it would have the same legal backing as the other issues 

I hope I can survive the pressure to conform.  As a physician, I will no doubt be subjected to all kinds of political and legal pressures.  But once I take that hippocratic oath I will not break it! I will be true to scientific truth, and the results of free scientific inquiry.  And the things I do and say will be for the benefit of my patients only.  No harm will come from me.  I promise.