What I realized, is that all these health professionals, who have dedicated their lives to medicine and their practice, are people too. They moan and groan when there's no more milk left for the coffee, they dont know the proper amount of honey to put on their granola and yoghurt (I saw a lady put a humongous spoonful on her granola), some were over weight and with health problems of their own, and some were old and some were young. But the thing that matter the most is that they were interested in Integrative Medicine and pushing the field of health care forward into the realm individualized health care that integrated well being, nuitrition, exercise, and state of mind, into a preventative practice.
I believe we are going to see a paradigm shift in health care. Obamacare being the start of it. Our system needs reforming. Right now, we are shelling out BILLIONS of dollars on disease. The most obvious problem is the amount of money we spend on dieing people. Today, people are living longer than they ever have in human history and we are now faced with a lot of new health issues. Back in the day, it wouldn't have matter if you smoked, sat on your ass and ate junk food all day long (although most of that wasnt even an option), because more than likely, some deadly pathogen was going to take you out before you turned the age of 50! Now this amount of money we spend on our elderly, is a sticky subject. After all, these are our grandparents and great grandparents we are spending this money on. What do you mean you are going to cut back my grandpappy's insurance coverage? He needs his hip replaced for the fifth time and his lung taken out and put on a ventilator and will need to be in physical therapy for the rest of his life and so on, and so on, and son on. The problems never end once a person starts dieing. Its sad and awful, but its the truth.
Now, another issue with our health system, is people taking advantage of it. Not just any people though, drug addicts. I don't even know the extent of it. But some people who live in a metropolis where there is more than one hospital within a half day traviel, can go to all the different emergency departments and get pain medication. One of the most shocking facts I heard about this problem was that a majority of the people who are doing this, use their health insurance. I personally had a friend in high school die from abusing the health care system, but she used her general practitioner. I partyly blame the doctor for her death. Why would you need to refill cough medicine prescription once or twice a month for longer than six months? But thats a different issue. There needs to be a cap on prescription refills and integrated management in a region so that a person cant go to five different doctors for the same issue and get five prescriptions of the same pain killer or sedative filled.
So, the conference was focused of overcoming issues like these. A way to change our healthcare system from a disease management to a disease prevention system. Health Care systems should be integrative, meaning that a variety of practitioners, all specializing in different areas, work together. One client can go to one health center and get the treatment for the mental disease that's causing their physical disease, which is actually caused by their diet, all in the same place. One of the coolest centers like this is in New York. Check out their website: http://healthandhealingny.org/highlights.asp
Western Medicine needs to take a step back from the specializations and look at the bigger picture. And this needs to be on a large scale. Some MDs spoke up after some speaches, complaining about how they have heard all these ideas before, in fact, they have been hearing these ideas for over 30 years! Corporate interests and big money institutions are preventing the change in health care, not to mention our flawed economic system that is based on exploitation. One med student tried to remove McDonald's from the hospital at his school and he was suspended until he quit the fight. Now how about all the surgeons out there who make money off of the disease and illnesses? Are they going to want to support preventative care? Money=power and us little guys, most of the time, don't have neither.
Ok, Thank you for reading.
My friend Bob, posted this on Facebook. Im not sure where he got it.
