But what struck me the most is the length the doctors went to, to perform unnecessary procedures on patients. The hospital even has in place doctors whose sole job is to try to convince the patients the importance of having certain procedure done, even when it is obvious such procedure would not benefit the patients. When that approach failed – which was often with me – the doctor would use a scare tactic approach to make to get the patient to submit to the procedure.  Such was the case when they tried to get me to accept the lumbar puncture procedure, the doctor suggested the symptoms I displayed could mean “cancer of the brain” or the “spinal cord”. The lumbar puncture would help to put the matter to rest, they assured me. It was all a lie, a scare tactic because the day prior, the MRI revealed absolutely nothing wrong with my brain.

In the end, I left the hospital after two weeks, returned home with the same illness I walked into the hospital with.

My experience is not unique with that particular hospital or to my particular case. Every day, across the country, individuals who check in in hospitals don’t make it back home; the lucky ones would return with more ills than when they checked in. Thousands of people would acquire additional illnesses from what took them to the hospital in the first place, many of those individuals would be on medication for the rest of their lives. And yet, very few people question what is done to them in the hospital. If my recent experience is any guide, most tests are unnecessary and the majority of procedures are experimental and educational, especially in hospitals affiliated with universities.