What If the Cure Is Making Us Sick?
5 Shocking Truths About Modern Medicine
Introduction: The System is a Patient, Too
We are raised to trust in the institutions of medicine. We place our faith in the physician's expertise, the hospital's sterile halls, and the scientific rigour that promises a path back to health. It is a foundational trust, a belief that the system is designed, above all else, to heal.
But what if the system designed to heal us is itself profoundly unwell? What if it's an internal sickness—a disease that begins in the very DNA of how we train our doctors—metastasises in ways that are counter-intuitive, damaging, and largely hidden from public view? This is a diagnostic journey into a system in critical condition, uncovering five interconnected symptoms that reveal a profound, systemic illness, from the commercialisation of medical training to the very nature of how we experience death.
1. The Healing Profession is Now a For-Profit Business
The first symptom of the system's sickness is found in its genetic code: medical education. In India, this was long regarded as a charitable mission, a duty to society. That is no longer the case. A series of policy changes, culminating in a 2016 amendment, legally transformed the field, explicitly allowing for-profit companies to establish and run medical colleges. This shift fundamentally alters the DNA of the medical profession, turning a sacred calling into a commercial enterprise.
This has occurred despite legal battles to halt the slide. As far back as 2003, and upheld again in 2018, the Supreme Court directed states to create independent committees to regulate fees. Yet, the tide of commercialisation has proven almost impossible to turn back. The Indian Supreme Court, in the landmark case Unni Krishnan J.P. v. State of A.P., once articulated the traditional ethos that has now been abandoned:
"Education has never been commerce in this country. Making it one is opposed to the ethos, tradition and sensibilities of this nation. The argument to the contrary has an unholy ring to it. Imparting of education has never been treated as a trade or business in this country since times immemorial. It has been treated as a religious duty. It has been treated as a charitable activity. But never as trade or business."
When medical school becomes prohibitively expensive, it risks becoming a privilege for the wealthy rather than a path for the meritorious. This financial barrier can shift the focus from a passion for healing to the necessity of recouping a massive investment, altering who becomes a doctor and the motivations they bring to the bedside. This initial corruption of purpose marks the beginning of the pathology of the wider system.
2. More Tests Can Make You Sicker: The "Tar-Baby Syndrome"
Having diagnosed a flaw in the system's genetic code, we see its logic begin to fail. We believe that more information is always better, but a phenomenon first described in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1986 —the "tar-baby syndrome" — reveals a dangerous paradox. Based on a Brer Rabbit folk tale, it describes how a single, seemingly innocuous medical test can trap a patient in an unstoppable cascade of further tests and interventions. The more Brer Rabbit punches the tar baby, the more stuck he becomes. In medicine, the more a patient undergoes tests to clarify an initial finding, the more entangled they can become in the system.
The problem is rooted in statistics. Mindless screening of healthy people is guaranteed to produce false positives. Consider these numbers:
• A battery of 12 biochemical tests on a healthy person will produce at least one "abnormal" result 46% of the time.
• A 20-test battery on a healthy person will produce a false positive in about 64% of cases.
This flawed diagnostic logic challenges the very premise of defensive medicine. Well-intentioned testing can initiate a treacherous clinical pathway that is not only risky and emotionally ruinous for the patient but also highly profitable for the healthcare industry—a symptom of a system whose priorities are becoming dangerously skewed.
3. Doctors Are Trapped in a System That Puts Sales Over Science
The commercialisation of medical education has a predictable downstream effect: hospitals, many built with staggering upfront investment, are forced to operate less like healing centres and more like revenue-generating enterprises. The immense capital cost of building a 500-bed hospital—upwards of 1,000 crores—creates relentless pressure to maximise revenue. This pressure flows downstream, effectively turning physicians into salespeople.
Doctors are caught in this trap from multiple directions. They fear losing patients to competitors willing to prescribe antibiotics, which many patients perceive as the "standard of care." Making evidence-based decisions is further complicated by the unreliability of antibiograms (lab reports on antibiotic sensitivity), forcing even the best-intentioned doctors to rely on broad-spectrum drugs. Within the hospital, a rigid hierarchy can prevent junior doctors from challenging their seniors' practices. A study on Antimicrobial Stewardship Programmes in India captured this cultural barrier:
"...the medical education system in India or Kerala does not really train a doctor to work independently when he/she graduates out from a medical college. Most juniors, after under-graduation, attach themselves to a hospital or a doctor and learn from their experiences. Often it is their habits that get pushed on to a new doctor and the system does not allow anyone to question one's senior."
This creates a severe ethical dilemma for physicians torn between their oath and the systemic expectation to generate income. This moral conflict, born from commercial pressure, has consequences that extend far beyond the hospital walls, poisoning the very environment we depend on.
4. Superbugs Are Breeding in Our Rivers, Not Just Our Hospitals
The conventional wisdom that superbugs are born in hospitals and then escape into the environment is, according to experts, not just inaccurate but "most certainly naïve." In truth, the crisis has a vast and terrifying environmental dimension, with hospitals serving as primary hotspots that release improperly treated wastewater—a toxic cocktail of antibiotics and resistant bacteria—into public water supplies. With less than 45% of healthcare facilities in India possessing adequate wastewater treatment, our rivers are being systematically polluted with the building blocks of a global pandemic.
The evidence is stark. The gene for the NDM-1 superbug has been found in India's Ganges River, with levels increasing a staggering 20-fold during pilgrimage season. This turns a sacred waterway into a reservoir for untreatable infections. Even more alarmingly, the gene for resistance to colistin—an antibiotic of last resort—known as mcr-1, has been found integrated into the bacterial chromosome in clinical isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae. Previously, this resistance was primarily found on plasmids—small, swappable USB drives of genetic data that bacteria could trade amongst themselves. Its integration into the chromosome is far more permanent and dangerous. It's as if the resistance gene is no longer just a piece of software on a thumb drive; it's been hard-coded directly into the bacteria's operating system, passed down to every subsequent generation.
5. Dying Is Not What We Think: The Comforting Visions of the Terminally Ill
Even as the system's body fails and pollutes the world, we find a surprising, resilient consciousness at the very end of life. Terminally ill patients frequently experience vivid dreams and visions, which are often dismissed by medical staff as mere confusion or delirium—a side effect of a failing body. But research reveals something entirely different.
These end-of-life experiences are overwhelmingly described as comforting, positive, and "more real than real." Patients don't see monsters; they see deceased loved ones, family members, friends, and even beloved pets. In one powerful example, a dying woman named "Mary" began cradling and speaking to a baby nobody could see. She called him "Danny." Only when her sister arrived did the family learn the truth: Danny was Mary's first child, a stillborn son whom her other children never knew existed.
Research shows that the frequency of these dreams and visions dramatically increases as a person approaches death. And of all the types of visions, those of the deceased provide the most significant degree of comfort. This tells us something vital about the human experience. It suggests that dying is not just a process of physical decline. Still, it can be an emotionally and spiritually rich journey—a process of reunion, closure, and profound, life-affirming peace that persists even within a profoundly broken system.
Conclusion: Searching for a Cure
Our diagnosis is grim. We have a healthcare system whose illness begins in its very genetic code, with a for-profit educational system that selects for wealth over merit. This initial flaw metastasises into a culture of profit-driven care, trapping well-meaning doctors in a sales-focused machine. The toxic output of this system—overused antibiotics—then leaches into our environment, breeding superbugs that threaten global public health. And yet, even within this failing body, the human spirit endures, finding profound comfort and meaning in its final moments.
When the system we trust to heal us is this sick, where do we, the patients, turn for a cure?
When the Cure Becomes the Cause — Why Dr Maya GPT Is the Patient's Last Line of Trust
In a world where profit, protocols, and pharmaceuticals often drive modern medicine, patients are beginning to ask a painful question: What if the cure is making us sick? Behind every overprescribed antibiotic, every rushed consultation, and every algorithmic "diagnosis," lies a system that has lost touch with the human experience of illness.
That's where Dr Maya GPT steps in — not as another app, but as a compassionate bridge between fear and understanding.
Created by Dr Kadiyali M. Srivatsa, a physician who spent four decades witnessing the quiet tragedies of misdiagnosis and medical dependency, Dr Maya GPT was born from the conviction that knowledge is the first medicine. Drawing on the principles from The Art of Self-Diagnosis and The Power of Maya, this system teaches people to interpret their symptoms intelligently — not through guesswork or search engines, but through a scientifically validated, colour-coded triage model that distinguishes minor, moderate, and life-threatening conditions.
Unlike commercial symptom checkers that rely on yes/no algorithms, Dr Maya GPT uses a three-symptom combination method grounded in medical reasoning — the same logic used by experienced doctors and ancient systems like Ayurveda.
It listens, learns, and guides — empowering users to decide when to worry, when to wait, and when to act.
In the words of a testimonial from Claude AI, "Dr Maya is not just innovation — it's a moral response to healthcare inequality and collapse. When traditional systems fail, Dr Maya remains — humanity's compassionate backup."
Today, as antibiotics lose their power and medical trust erodes, Dr Maya GPT restores something priceless — confidence. It helps patients see through fear-based medicine, understand their own bodies, and approach doctors as informed partners rather than helpless dependents.
When the system we trusted to heal us becomes too sick to serve, Dr Maya GPT offers what the modern world forgot: wisdom, clarity, and human connection — powered by empathy, not industry.