Japanese Doctors: “Do Not Come If It Does Not Hurt” and “The Same Thing Every Time”. No Doctor Sees the Whole of Me

“Do not come if it does not hurt.”

That is what I was told in the exam room of an orthopedic clinic. It was two or three years ago. My hip joints and knees had started to hurt, and I went there with a referral letter from my local doctor.

On that very day, my symptoms had calmed down. I only wanted to be checked before the pain came back. But the doctor said only a few short words.

To the doctor, it may have looked like a waste of insurance money. But I went there because I was worried about my own body. I still remember that frustration and confusion very clearly.

At the internal medicine clinic, the same exchange every time

On the other hand, the place I visit regularly is an internal medicine clinic. My blood pressure is on the high side, so I see the doctor once every three months and get my medicine.

The visit itself is short. He measures my blood pressure, prescribes my medicine, and at the end he says this every time.

“Please lose some weight.” “Please do some light exercise.” “Please drink enough water.”

The same three things, every time.

At first I thought, “Is the doctor really looking at me when he says this?” These days I only think, “Those three again.”

I already do it myself, before anyone tells me

To be honest, I was already moving before the doctor told me to.

I keep walking every day. About 5,000 steps, about 50 minutes. I walk around my neighborhood.

At home, I do Hindu squats, sit-ups, and forward bends, 20 times each, two sets, in my own way. I do them in my own amateur way, but I keep doing them.

I also make sure to drink water in summer.

When the doctor says “weight,” “light exercise,” and “water,” I answer in my heart, “I already do that.” Still, I listen in silence.

But I also think this. Does this doctor know that I am already moving? What can he learn in a five-minute visit once every three months?

My classmates are disappearing

Lately, I hear more and more news about my old classmates.

One got cancer. One collapsed from a stroke. One died. News like this comes in, one by one.

It is not just their story. People of my own generation are surely disappearing.

That is why I want to be checked before the pain comes. After the pain comes, it is too late. When I see how fast my classmates are disappearing, I cannot help thinking so.

I only want to be checked for prevention. Why is even that not possible?

The two doctors do not see me

The orthopedic doctor turned me away with “Do not come if it does not hurt.”

The internal medicine doctor only says “the same thing” every time.

They are different types, but I think the root is the same.

Neither of them looks at the whole of me as a person.

My knees, my lower back, my blood pressure, my posture, the way I walk, my past surgeries, my daily life, my exercise habits. All of these should be connected. But no one looks at them together.

“If it hurts here, maybe something else is related.” “Because of your past surgeries, you need this kind of care.” There is no place in medicine where I am seen from that point of view.

At the dentist, I can get prevention

I go to the dentist once every three months. They remove the plaque, check my gums, and act before a cavity forms. Going before things get bad is normal there.

But at the orthopedic clinic, if I go before it hurts, I am told “Do not come.” At the internal medicine clinic, all I get is medicine and the same set phrases.

Why are teeth and the body treated so differently?

Early signs before the pain, habits of posture, an uneven way of walking, the link with daily habits. It has bothered me for a long time that there is no place in medicine that pays attention to these things.

“A person who is not sick is not a patient”?

When I think about it, maybe medicine is built to “cure illness.” It is not built to “watch over people so they do not get sick.”

Is it a problem of the system? Is it the harm caused by dividing medicine into too many specialties? Or is the idea that “a person who is not sick is not a patient” at the root of medicine?

I do not have the answer yet.

But I am in my 60s, and I have lived through my working years and the years after I retired. To me, it looks like this.

Medicine has not yet caught up with the worries of my generation.

Looking back, maybe I was shallow too

When I think about it calmly, maybe going to that orthopedic clinic with that kind of feeling was itself a mistake.

Asking “please check me for prevention, even though I have no symptoms” is probably out of place within the health insurance system. And in a busy clinic, maybe the doctor could not help saying a short “Do not come.”

Now I think this. Maybe I asked in the wrong way. What I wanted did not fit the system of medicine itself. The doctor got angry, and maybe the cause of that was on my side.

And the doctors probably have a hard time too. Hospital management, the working conditions of medical staff, the health insurance system. When I line up the stories I hear, they are probably all connected. It is not a problem I can solve alone.

Even so, the wish to have a doctor who sees the whole of me does not go away.

It is not a complaint about medicine. It is a small wish, as a patient.

I have not given up on medicine that sees the whole person

Even so, I have not given up.

I will keep doing what I can do myself. Walking, squats, sit-ups, forward bends. Even an amateur version is fine. Keeping it up is what matters.

But at the same time, I think this. At this age, when my classmates are disappearing, what I want from medicine is not only “to be cured.” It is to be seen as one person, as a whole.

Maybe it only means that I have not yet met a doctor who sees me as a whole.