Goop is on to something important I think that it’s worth listening to, even if Goop and the wellness movement need to go away. The way we have organised socie

Goop is on to something important I think that it’s worth listening to, even if Goop and the wellness movement need to go away. The way we have organised society, including the way we practice medicine, is not fantastic for human well-being. When I am sick I want a doctor who I am confident will give most effective medical treatment we know of. Part of that need is to feel that the doctor has heard me, and cares about me. I think we systemically fail at both actually giving the most effective treatment, and giving patients the feeling that they are getting effective treatment. Doctors do intervene more than they need to with both drugs and surgery. That’s true, and well known. This is only anecdotal from people I have talked to, but it seems to be common experience to have symptoms repeatedly dismissed by doctors, sometimes over years, that turn out to be pathological. It is also both true and now common knowledge that there are systemic biases in research favouring the prescription of pharmaceuticals. Doctors everywhere are under pressure to increase throughput of patients, so it’s also very difficult to give a full account of complex symptom clusters in the time available. It is not at all surprising that people turn to “medicine” that is packaged in more caring terms. Just pragmatically, the tone of these articles is not going to win these people back. It’s not that it’s not warranted, it’s that is actively leaning in to what’s causing people to seek medical answers in (what should be) the fringes.