Sickness, suffering and death are shrouded in fear. The price of overlooking these three concepts and the connection to fear is costing human lives. Americans seem to pay any price to avoid it, including compromising the quality of our lives, our environment, and the welfare of those yet to come.
It is a steep bill in comparison to the quality of life that is possible and obtainable if we examine how to perceive these concepts with compassion, understanding, and thoughtfulness.
Rather than ignoring the rising costs, perhaps it is time that we form a health professional conglomerate. Create a collective that chooses to listen and understand each another, in order to use our skills and tools more efficiently and effectively, thereby meet the needs of the public. In order to remove the fear-based model that current drives our medical system, let us begin with a common goal: to organize our efforts and create a low-cost, effective, and widely available healthcare system.
America’s current medical system is unable to cope with basic necessities and maintain health and well being for our patients.
Adherence to this antiquated model contains limitations and in a way appears disconnected from the public despite our intentions. Therefore, an examination of the present state of affairs for America’s healthcare is necessary in order fully understand our current limitations and to make roadmaps for brighter future for healthcare.
It is essential that all parties from patient to practitioner and the supporting companies in between are involved.
This dialogue between the different aspects of our system will be thorough, addressing everyone’s needs and concerns for healthcare. Far too often medical assistance is financially unaffordable for our working class citizens, the backbone of our economy. Healthcare affects everyone, young and old, across ethical and racial backgrounds, and therefore should not be divided upon socio-economic lines. Of great importance is to seek unity through our diversity, try to understand how each health profession can play a part in the new phase of medicine
How is this endeavor possible considering the epidemics of obesity and cancers that plague our society? Here’s a big hint: preventative medicine prevents disease.
More importantly, preventative medicine empowers the individual with quality of life while relieving the economic burden of health care costs. This may appear as a redundant statement, it is not, in fact is shall be stated again to prove the point of its simplicity: preventative medicine prevents disease. Implementation of this simple concept will not be through an over-night or one-time program, rather it will be successfully implemented through a thoughtful, thorough, and baby-steps fashion.
Health professionals: let us follow the lead of some innovative thinkers right in our own back yard, like New York Mayor Michael Bloomburg and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Let us begin to focus on what can be done about the situation. Let us create an open dialogue and find a viable solution for the betterment of the American citizens.
I look forward to what we all can accomplish.
Sincerely,
C. Biscuit
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
A unified front is not only feasible but also essential. The feasibility lies not only in the hope but in the economics: those participating in preventative care have cheaper healthcare costs, i.e., health insurance companies want to insure you because you are in a healthier demographic, and thusly you can actually be a source of revenue for them. There is a good driver discount for car insurance, why not health insurance? (Though they’re happy to penalize you for smoking or having previous conditions).
The essential aspect of preventative care is evident in the shortcomings of modern medicine: expensive, too little too late, shortsightedness. Expensive procedures are typically those done in the 11th hour, where long hospital stays and specialists are needed nearly around the clock, and the newest most expensive drugs are usually prescribed for all but th e most simple cases.
It is at this stage of disease that one’s personal relationship with death really steps to the fore. Are we embracing our time to bow out with an open heart, or are we running away because we are scared or something has been left undone?
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thank you for your comments.
please see your response, Brandon, in the formal article entitled: “Letter to Gossamer Soul.”
a poem in lieu:
Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer
O’er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze,
The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread;
Waving in every sighing air that stirs,
As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread:
A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew
Spangle the texture of the fairy loom,
As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew,
Had wept departed Summer’s transient bloom:
But the wind rises, and the turf receives
The glittering web: — So, evanescent, fade
Bright views that Youth with sanguine heart believes:
So vanish schemes of bliss, by Fancy made;
Which, fragile as the fleeting dews of morn,
Leave but the wither’d heath, and barren thorn!
Charlotte Smith
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A big part of this is Health Awareness as well as Policy. I can feel that we are at a “tipping” point with integrative health. At Intel where I work for US employees they are starting a program called Health for Life which is focused much more on preventitive healthcare. My daughter’s school uses off school time to get it’s teachers educated on the issues such as Obesity, eating right etc.
As you rightly point out healthcare affects everyone, young and old, across ethical and racial backgrounds.
This is a multi dimensional problem unfortunately and will take time to get through to people.
We need to create an open dialog on this important topic and get more people aware of the their body’s healing potential and provide the tools for them to prevent disease.
–Suresh
Well said, Suresh,
Health affects all of us, and it’s fabulous that Intel is teaching its employees preventitive healthcare, same goes for your daughter’s school. The folks over there must have gotten “the memo.” Those are the wheels that I like to see turning when it comes to change, thanks for letting us know.
Your suggestion of a multiple dimensional front is entirely plausibe and possible given these main forces at work: consumer dissatisfaction, inappropriate side effects, costly care options, and overworked healthcare professionals. This denotes to me a state of imbalance. An open dialogue between all areas affected by health can alleviate this undue stress and create a state of optimum healthcare for everyone. In fact, one is underway at Helfgott, check it out here:
http://www.helfgottblog.com/2007/07/an-open-letter-to-the-public-power-to-the-people/
We got the idea of a unified healthcare front through the inspirational work created by the Vivid Picture Project. The”Roots of Change” council put their noggins together and figured out a pretty remarkable plan, the aforementioned Vivid Picture Project, to bring sustainability to California’s food sources. How they did it was pretty avant-garde, too. Great, great, great place to marvel in the possibilities of a revoluton for healthcare:
http://www.vividpicture.net/
My best,
C. Biscuit