Trust Me, I’m A Witchdoctor
Via Mr Muldoon, a peek into the comment pages of the Guardian, where Ms Ngaree Blow attempts to sell the merits of prehistoric healing:
Healthcare systems in Australia that are considered “mainstream” are fundamentally colonial organisations: designed, established and informed by Western paradigms and biomedical models of care.
Going with what works and works reliably. How very dare those damned colonials. With their Western paradigms.
At present, the norm is those who will fit within the constraints of the Western worldview of health… Ultimately, this results in a health system which is not fit for purpose,
The term fit for purpose is one to keep in mind. But first, some self-flattery – the urge to self-inflate being a Guardian staple:
First Peoples are the antithesis of colonial; we are inherently disruptive to how the healthcare system (and many other systems in fact) operate in Australia… As a doctor, I have embraced disruption and have chosen to reject conventional medical training pathways.
How terribly daring. With other people’s wellbeing.
Our disruption has historically been, and continues to be, rejected by the mainstream.
Intimations of victimhood being another Guardian staple. Apparently, modern medical science, with its oppressive Western paradigms, is insufficiently deferential to “our ways of knowing, being and doing.” We must, says Ms Blow, “embrace all knowledge systems.”
Our unique lens, which views health as holistic and all-encompassing, has often been ignored or worse, considered inferior, as evidenced by a lack of traditional practices in these services.
Well, not everyone is happy trusting their recovery to healing songs and delusions of aboriginal sorcery, and there’s only so much you can achieve by pushing crushed witchetty grubs into a person’s ear. Likewise, the restorative properties of bush dung, as used in many of the practices invoked by Ms Blow – those “ways of knowing” – are somewhat unclear.
With a glorious lack of irony, Ms Blow then denounces “outdated approaches to health” and insists that medical treatment must be “culturally appropriate.” If not, one assumes, optimal or even efficacious. Still, if patients aren’t recovering as rapidly as one might hope, or indeed recovering at all, at least those Western paradigms will be “decolonised” and righteously disrupted:
There has never been a more exciting time to be disruptive.
A term Ms Blow deploys no fewer than eleven times. Possibly hinting at her priorities.
Update, via the comments:
Ms Blow also deploys the buzzword ‘equity’, discussed here recently, and enthuses about its potential as a “disruptive innovation”:
Equity of ideas or worldviews of health and wellbeing should have mutual respect, without hierarchy of knowledge systems.
Medicine must, we’re told, “incorporate” aboriginal beliefs – and without hierarchy. And so, doctors and surgeons should pretend that all worldviews, however primitive and dysfunctional, are somehow equal in their merits and medical effectiveness. An equally valid use of time and resources.
But despite attempts to romanticise aboriginal medicine, the persistent differences in health and lifespan rather speak for themselves. If aboriginal approaches, untainted by “colonial organisations,” are so praiseworthy and desirable, one wonders why aboriginal people suffer from alarming rates of diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis, chlamydia and any number of other afflictions – from cardiovascular problems to hearing loss and disastrous oral hygiene. And the less contact they have with the “biomedical models” that so offend Ms Blow, the more pronounced the disparities seem to be. Being “disruptive” and “the antithesis of colonial” doesn’t appear to be working out awfully well.
And if the primary cause of the disparities is the arrestedness of aboriginal culture, and it would seem it is, then demanding medical deference to aboriginal beliefs – in the name of “equity” and “disruption” – doesn’t sound like the best way to improve health outcomes for aboriginal people.
Ms Blow is currently employed by the University of Melbourne.
’ Ngaree Blow is a Yorta-Yorta, Noonuccal, Goreng Goreng woman and doctor.’
How on earth does that all fit on the name badge..? She also looks as white as I am.
With a glorious lack of irony, Ms Blow then denounces “outdated approaches to health”
Wow. Peak Guardian?
Wow. Peak Guardian?
As a rogue Guardian commenter notes, the aspects of ‘herbal’ or ‘traditional’ medicine that weren’t just woo and to some extent actually worked became conventional medicine and subsequently their effects were markedly improved. And if one were to compare a sense of enquiry and willingness to experiment, to incorporate and synthesize, those allegedly oppressive “Western paradigms” would fare quite well, not least when compared with a dogmatic insistence on chanting and dung. In the name of an ossified Stone Age culture.
Note the gushing endorsements by people with “social justice” or needless pronouns in their Twitter bios.
This sort of stuff is quite common in the Graun. It never seems to have an impact on their “party of science” bullshit though.
or worse, considered inferior,
If she gets pregnant or needs antibiotics I bet she won’t be running to the nearest ‘traditional healer’.
Guardian readers are fine with this, as they will never be affected (they will choose the outdated, colonial medicine), only aboriginals will suffer.
Sociopaths.
If she gets pregnant or needs antibiotics I bet she won’t be running to the nearest ‘traditional healer’.
Again, some people are more accustomed to habitual pretence.
Guardian readers are fine with this, as they will never be affected (they will choose the outdated, colonial medicine), only aboriginals will suffer.
Given the marked and persistent disparity in average life expectancy, at one point measured in decades, I’m not sure that aboriginal medicine, such as it is, is something to boast about. On indeed inflict on people.
As a rogue Guardian commenter notes…
If one weren’t already upon your head (or in your sinuses) I would that there be a pox on your head for causing me to wade into that cesspit of stupid, regardless of the occasional sane person, e.g…
…who gets to the heart of the matter. Australia has their version of the NHS, as such, it is resource constrained. In a resource constrained system, money spent on flummery is money not spent on a needed resource, whether personnel, materiel, or facilities. I don’t know what a Ngangkari fetches in salary, but it is likely at least one or more less nurse or a PA. The alternative, of course, is to jack up prices in the form of higher taxes, or cut some other government service (you lot don’t need that tank, do you). For a country as huge as Australia to fritter away money on this sort of thing while having fewer MRIs/capita than Tennessee (only twice the size of Tasmania) alone is probably not the best health care budgeting decision making. The bottom line is someone, somewhere, doesn’t get what is really needed to assuage someone else’s feels.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, we find a defender of the flummery who is incensed at another person calling it as it is…
“Trial and error”, mainly error based on the lack of efficacy for treating real disease, but hey, it is not iridology, which is totally irrational, unlike getting ones spirits and chakras aligned.
Still, if patients aren’t recovering as rapidly as one might hope, or indeed recovering at all, at least those Western paradigms will be “decolonised” and righteously disrupted
That.
That.
It does rather hint at Ms Blow’s priorities.
If one weren’t already upon your head (or in your sinuses) I would that there be a pox on your head
It’s now a chesty wheeze. I am therefore gnawing on tree bark and smearing myself with kangaroo excrement.
I am therefore gnawing on tree bark and smearing myself with kangaroo excrement.
I’m not too sure that is the right cure, let me consult some thrown some chicken bones – wait a tic…
Ah – there it is – you are in the Northern (or as we call it Yte) hemisphere, so for that cure to work you need to align your sickbed with the equinox opening of Stonehenge, and have a Druid priest place some healing runes in a heptagram around it, then you’ll be up and at ’em in no time.
“With a glorious lack of irony, Ms Blow then denounces ‘outdated approaches to health’”
To the Guardianista, there is no irony. It’s been clear for some time that “outdated” is simply Guardian-speak for “something we don’t like but can’t actually form any coherent argument against”.
“I am therefore gnawing on tree bark and smearing myself with kangaroo excrement.”
Oh. I thought you’d been down the tanning salon. I did wonder about the, er… interesting aroma, right enough…
I thought you’d been down the tanning salon.
A prospect about as likely as the excremental daubing.
Ms Blow’s aboriginal friends want some of that sweet government healthcare money. What a deal that would be: lots of money without having to spend years in medical school actually learning how to diagnose and cure sick people.
Jeez, with all that “culturally appropriate” medicine, our indigenous brothers must surely be the healthiest people in the country, despite Medicare and that “colonialist” western medicine. Hang on … aboriginal median age of death is 25 years less than the population as a whole …..?
What a deal that would be: lots of money without having to spend years in medical school actually learning how to diagnose and cure sick people.
Lots of someone’s money, Ngaree has already been to med school, not that translates automatically to actually being able to diagnose and cure sick people, which makes me wonder about this curious statement.
Public health, other than grunt work in something like an county health clinic (which is actually done by primary care types), being what we call in the trade an MPC, or even an NPC specialty (minimal or non patient contact).
At one time, for example, John Snow and the Broad Street Pump, Walter Reed and yellow fever, eradicating hookworm in the south, almost completely eradicating polio worldwide, etc, etc, public health and preventive medicine was a noble, and often dangerous to the practitioners, field. Now standing on the shoulders of these giants is a lot of nanny state SJW charlatans who, having no great diseases to conquer – except ones like cancers that require lots of contact with actual sick people and actual laboratory research – dream up drivel like this.
Here in the US&A, these titans of medicine have filed a complaint to stop publication against the Annals of Internal Medicine because the journal dared publish a research article saying that eating red meat isn’t the devil.
As I said, nanny statee SJWs. Mustn’t disturb the narrative – silence the heretics.
Hang on … aboriginal median age of death is 25 years less than the population as a whole …..?
Well, of course, that is because they have been forced to use Colonial Wypipo Medicine™ and denied their Ngangkari and other Disruptive Indigenous Medical™ personnel and paraphernalia. The average age of the indigenous Australian was 157 until Cook landed, then it instantly fell to 35.
Ngaree has already been to med school
That’s why I wrote “Ms Blow’s aboriginal friends”. In addition to the usual political posturing and indulgence in childish fantasies, these movements usually have an element of financial fraud.
No, no, no, David. You got the wisdom of the ancestors backwards. You SMEAR yourself with the TREE BARK and gnaw on the…
Do the rest of you know that Terrence Howard was asked to speak on physics and mathematics AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY. It’s the end of the world.
https://youtu.be/ca1vIYmGyYA
Note the gushing endorsements by people with “social justice” or needless pronouns in their Twitter bios.
I suspect their reactions might be different if they were to go to the doctor with a broken arm and he started slapping the dung on them.
Terrence Howard was asked to speak on physics and mathematics
I was not expecting to find Booked On Phonics at Oxford.
Details of his, um, eccentric theories here:
“In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Howard explained that he had formulated his own language of logic, which he called Terryology, and which he was keeping secret until he had patented it. This logic language would be used to prove his contention that ‘1 × 1 = 2’. ”
Are patents awarded for insane crackpottery? His ignorance and silliness are exceeded only by his ego.
”His ignorance and silliness are exceeded only by his ego.”
And he was asked to speak AT OXFORD.
asked to speak at Oxford
If you review the list of people invited to speak at Oxford Union, you will find lots of cranks, including Black (Criminal) Lives Matter. One might speculate that they like to invite a full range of opinions. And perhaps he was invited because of his acting career, not his mathematical and physical theories. On the other hand, the few Oxford people I have met personally have struck me as being in the grip of irrational leftist fantasies, fantasies which included a significant amount of malice towards “class enemies”.
Heh. He said he was “honored to speak at Oxford”. So honored that he put forward the supreme effort and managed to throw a (sport?) coat over his t-shirt before taking the podium. I wonder if we shall see much more honorable men speaking at our major universities in our lifetimes.
If you review the list of people invited to speak at Oxford Union, you will find lots of cranks, including Black (Criminal) Lives Matter.
BLM doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’m curious to see the list. Any Brexteers or BNP folks? Boris? I have no idea myself, asking for perspective. Apparently they had Saint Maggie there back in the day.
WTP: the YouTube video has a link to their website, and from there you can find a list of past speakers.
When did ‘ineffective’ get rebranded as ‘disruptive’?
Charlie, no one ever said it was good science.
Sit around for 40000 years and achieve fuck all.
I was not expecting to find Booked On Phonics at Oxford.
I believe you’ve identified the source for the language used in most humanities abstracts.
Note that Ms Blow deploys the buzzword ‘equity’, discussed here recently, and enthuses about its potential as a “disruptive innovation”:
Medicine must, we’re told, “incorporate” aboriginal beliefs. And so, doctors and surgeons should pretend that all worldviews, however primitive and dysfunctional, are somehow equal in their merits and medical effectiveness.
Except for those oppressive and colonial Western paradigms, presumably.
I suspect that future historians, i.e. thems who survive, will refer to the next fifty years of our history as The Great Culling.
Instalanche!
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/344424/
Instalanche!
Shred this, flush that, and help me erase these hard drives.
…and help me erase these hard drives.
Here, use this bottle of BleachBit I picked up at a Clinton yard sale.
She also looks as white as I am.
Be careful, the columnist Andrew Bolt was successfully sued ten years ago in Australia for observing that a number of “aboriginal” activists clearly had mostly white ancestry.
Having one minority grandparent obviously qualifies you for the rights and privileges of being a “person of color”, and don’t you dare question it.
And once round the gents’ with a can of Oust.
If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll rattle the spam filter. Which, needless to say, is being tetchy again.
rattle the spam filter. Which, needless to say, is being tetchy again.
Do Instapundit readers annoy it?
Shred this, flush that, and help me erase these hard drives.
Hide the good liquor and the pickled eggs.
Hide the good liquor…
That ship is so far over the over the horizon it is already tomorrow.
Do Instapundit readers annoy it?
Not particularly, but she’s capricious. A few years ago, my own comments were getting snagged in there for the better part of a day. You can imagine the indignity.
A few years ago, my own comments were getting snagged
As if it had developed a grudge against you. Now I understand why you write “appease the spam filter”.
. . . the journal dared publish a research article saying that eating red meat isn’t the devil.
Oh, it’s not red meat that’s bad for you, it’s green fuzzy meat that’s bad for you . . .
And Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health warned that the conclusions could “erode public trust in scientific research.”
As if biomedical research is scientific. Outside of their dreams, that is. The biomedical research literature is a joke by the standards of physics and chemistry. See, e.g., the “replication crisis.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#In_medicine