I was listening to a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience last night where he and his guest were discussing consensus science and the role of so called “heretics” in fostering curiosity and challenging the status quo in science which is often proven incorrect over the course of time. His guest, Dr. Pierre Kory, made the point that consensus science is often biased by the institutions writing out the paychecks of the scientists creating scientific conclusions and that the role of “heretics” or those who go against the commonly held narrative is to cultivate ideas that challenge the consensus. In a culture now largely defined by social media, the heretics of old have largely been reclassified as “conspiracy theorists,” a term that lends itself to discrediting the ideas of such dissenters of popular opinion more easily and creates an us vs. them mentality that marginalizes the exploration of independent thought. Regardless of the label, the outliers of scientific consensus, are the trailblazers of future medicine. Without them, we are left with stagnation and unshiftable paradigms.
With the passage of time, it is often revealed that the mainstream scientific consensus does, in fact, reflect the financial interests of corporate and institutional leaders rather than pure, objective science. And creating a radical paradigm shift in medicine, in particular, often takes many decades or even centuries before the majority are willing to accept that ideas previously posed by heretics and conspiracy theorists actually warrant comprehensive review and subsequent validation and acceptance. Those outliers are often independent entrepreneurs whose ideas are not directed by a department head, government, or managing agency. Their ideas are free to evolve because they are not attached to specific expectations related to corporate profits or government agendas. They are more often driven by insatiable curiosity.
Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician from the mid-1800’s who introduced the idea of having doctors wash their hands between patients. Women who birthed in hospitals were dying at an alarming rate of up to a third of deliveries vs. 5 in 1,000 for those who birthed at home or in the hospital attended by midwives. The doctors of the era were at a loss to understand why there was such an alarming discrepancy. As it turned out, many physicians came straight from examining the bodies of deceased mothers who died of childbed fever the day before to delivering babies without first washing their hands. Dr. Semmelweis asserted that the physicians were transplanting germs from the dead bodies to the reproductive tracts of laboring women, however, the contemporaries of Dr. Semmelweis refused to accept that their negligence in washing their hands could possibly be responsible for the deaths of their patients. While there are alternative theories relating to the toxicity model of disease rather than germ theory, regardless of the mechanism of disease development, it was evident that doctors washing their hands after handling corpses merited establishment of hand washing as protocol. Dr. Semmelweis supposedly went crazy and died in a sanitarium with his ideas being rejected by the mainstream establishment and it would not be until some years later before the mainstream medical establishment universally adopted hand washing procedures that we could not fathom going without in modern times. Yet, this is only one example of where existing medical science got it really wrong in its lag in considering and accepting new ideas that challenged its status quo and collective scientific ego. The delay in the doctors’ of this era in overcoming their own limiting beliefs and ability to explore other possibilities that fell outside the existing consensus sadly cost many patients their lives.
Further examples of stagnation in medical advancement and humility include the use of mercury as medicine from the 16th to 20th centuries, doctors promoting cigarette smoking, and modern day promotion of pharmaceuticals through various drug company incentives provided to doctors for endorsing and promoting their products. I recently watched a video from the 1990s of doctors asserting what wonderful drugs opioids were and how they were not at all addictive. Several decades later and we now understand what a crisis the commercialization of opioids has created. Likewise, “natural” and “alternative” medicine have contributed their fair share of remedies and practices that have not served their patients well. The point is, we need to be incredibly careful about the acceptance of medical science when its conclusions are colored by corporate profit margins, government agendas, and cognitive dissonance. Dare I purport that we need to reimagine a healthcare system that incentivizes healthcare providers who wean their patients off of their services all together, eliminates the current patent system that prioritizes chemical-based solutions and devices based on profit margins, and eliminates the hierarchical structure that disempowers patients by dogmatizing the idea that true healing comes from anyplace other than one’s own self.
Enter the entrepreneurial model of healing. I’ll play devils advocate for a moment and assert that not every heretic and conspiracy theory is correct, not by a long shot. Arguably for every accurate conspiracy reality, there’s potentially twenty theories that are just urban legend, pure fantasy, or flat out inaccurate. But the curiosity that allows such ideas to bubble to the top and challenge the status quo is the same curiosity that fosters the advancement of science and discourages the curious cultivation of ideas just because some of those ideas may lack merit, misses the opportunity to create radical progress. This is how progress and ingenuity is created in every other field of study, however, it is largely discouraged on a larger scale in medical science.
Many entrepreneurs fail. Their ideas do not always expand into practical application. Some have brilliant ideas but terrible business skills. Others have marketability but ideas that are incomplete. But all share one thing in common, their ability to grow unfettered in an environment that is not stifled by the confines of existing corporate agendas or institutional bureaucracy. There is the potential for financial gain, but, especially in the incubator of ideas in the early stages of cultivating new solutions that are different from existing solutions, the environment is boundless.
Root cause healing happens with an entrepreneurial mindset. It takes stepping out of the self limiting box of insurance company protocols. It often requires stepping away from doctors who participate in corporate healthcare conglomerates. It requires looking at your unique experiences that make your healing journey different from anyone else’s. It requires throwing away the cookie cutter solutions and building your individualized solution from the ground up without leaning on profit-driven machines that are designed to satisfy stockholders, not to ease human suffering and cultivate aliveness. Above all, it involves giving yourself permission to be the entrepreneur of your own health. You can seek partnerships with well qualified providers, but ultimately the creative capacity required to build a body worthy of calling home is an inside job.
True entrepreneurs do not ask for permission to create, and true healing does not come from waiting for anyone to give you permission to do it. Not from a doctor, not from an insurance company, not from a drug company. Permission to heal comes from within and it is the first step necessary to cultivate radical healing.
So if there’s a little voice that speaks without words gradually getting louder inside you begging you to not just manage the symptoms of unwellness, but to feel really alive in your own body, then quit your job in middle management. Let’s be real, it wasn’t feeding your soul anyway. Promote yourself to entrepreneur. Yes, entrepreneurship can be scary and uncertain. You don’t always know where your next paycheck is coming from and you are 100% responsible for every failure and success in the business, but the reward is living in a body designed by you for optimal health, performance, energy, and vitality that does not exist to feed a corporate profit machine that has little to no interest in your individual wellbeing. The health freedom that accompanies putting yourself in the driver’s seat of your own wellness cannot be outsourced.
