"No one dies from having their medication stopped"

This is a comment overheard at rounds the other day. One doctor was counseling another about stopping a certian medication and then explained that during his rotation of training in England, that the chief doctor would get a referal and would review the chart and then immediately stop all medications. He would then say "let's come back tomorrow and see how they are doing". Usually the person was better the next day. The doctor went on to comment to the other that here in North America, we are fixated on medications. "When you call geriatrician over there, they stop meds, here they review the chart and probably add another one."

I wonder about this. Interesting comment that it is. There are some patients that benefit from certain drugs treatments but most would probably do fine without. Years ago, we didn't do so much treatment with drugs, (of course someone might argue that years ago, we didn't have the diseases that we do now.)

I thought it was an interesting comment on the evolution of healthcare.