For the last ten years or so have not taken any prescription drugs, except on very short occasions for specific problem like ear infection.
In the past I posted about my survival in spite of several prescribed drugs. There were some drugs that saved my life. Some you win some you loose.
I have learned not to trust doctors implicitly, I value their diagnostic skills, their tratment plans I do take with a large grain of salt, and do extensive resarch on benefit/detriment ratios. I take the diagnosis as a good staring point, if in doubt I would go for and pay for a second opinion. Insurance coverage be damned. If something would develop as really serious go for third opinion as well.
I am sure I consume some drugs that are in beef or other critters and lately in the unlabeled genetically modified crops. Like antibiotics that fed to animals or for example the corn sold today is vastly different thing from a hundred years ago.
Does High Fructose Corn Syrup count as a drug? That stuff iis in nearly every processed food, like Ketcsup, at the diner this morning just happened to look at the label.
As for the OP, just be sure you understand what is important and when.
To a good degree doctors rely on research by the various medical/drug industries for deciding on the value of medications treatment plans. Following are some observations regarding the validity of research results:
"...... favourite quotes by Drummond Rennie, at the time the Deputy Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.:
‘There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature citation too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too selfserving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.’
A view supported from a slightly different angle by Dr Marcia Agnell, who was the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for two decades. This was, and remains, the single most powerful and influential medical journal in the world. At least it is, when it comes to citations and impact factor:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” Dr Marcia Agnell "
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick | Scottish doctor and author of 'The Great Cholesterol Con'
Edit add: IMHO a doctor's greatest value, as in all skilled craft, is in diagnostic skill.