MEDICAL ILLITERACY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Part 1
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” -Darwin
Medical illiteracy means that a person has no knowledge or understanding about any illnesses or medical issues and does not know how to obtain required medical information, because he/she lacks communication or computer skills. Additionally, he/she has no idea how health care providers and health care institutions work. Therefore, this person is unable to make a reasonable decision about his/her heath care needs and can easily become a subject of medical deception.
Many factors contribute to medical illiteracy, including but not limited to poverty, lack of education, no teaching and learning anything about medical issues and medical language, how to obtain needed medical information when needed, how to talk to health care professionals, and his/her rights to proper medical care and more during the school years.
Studies done on medical illiteracy have shown that 36 percent of Americans have only basic or below basic health care skills, and individuals with low medical literacy skills have health care costs four (4) times higher than those with high medical literacy skills, and they have shorter lifespan.
As I see it, from my 40 years of medical practice experience, medical illiteracy is the biggest cause of medical fraud, in every country of the world. Ignorance and naivety of patients makes them vulnerable to medical fraud by unscrupulous medical providers and profit-oriented health care institutions, to have many more unnecessary tests, treatments, office visits, procedures and even surgeries.
I believe medical fraud by some is unavoidable, because its due to human characters flaws. The only way fraudulent medical practices could be remedied or prevented by teaching every person during their school years and adult life by public education, about basic medical knowledge on most frequently encountered health issues, some medical terminology, how to talk to medical professional, importance of second opinion, and how to search internet for reliable medical information.
It should be stressed that all medical information obtained from internet and social media is not reliable. Internet message boards now are littered with disinformation, conspiracy theories, bogus scientific facts and truth denials.
Having enough medical knowledge and medical literacy is not an easy task even for medical professionals. That is why there are so many subspecialities in every field of medicine.
In the second part of this article, we will try to check your medical literacy by asking you a few basic health care questions and try to answer them together.
