Relentless Health Value

You may or may not know (I don’t know why you would, honestly), but I speak Swedish. I mention this because there’s this famous and really culturally emblematic Swedish word which is this: lagom. It means “the exact right amount.” In Swedish culture, the exact right amount deserves its own word. For example, “Did you have enough watermelon?” “Why, yes, I had half a slice. It was lagom.” Lagom has no direct translation in US English because, in the United States, we don’t need a word for “the exact right amount.” Why? Because the exact right amount already has a word: the most. More. More is always better. I think this shows up in health care in this country, and it definitely showed up in my conversation with Dr. Bishal Gyawali in this health care podcast. There’s this cultural bias in this country that more is better. The point I’m making is that there’s a sort of fundamental belief that aggressive therapy—the most aggressive therapy—is the best therapy and conservative therapy, or following the treatment pa