Notes on life, philosophy, and medicine

There's a tendency for people in positions of power to concentrate power, which leads to increasing levels of bureaucracy. It's natural and something I've spoken about in the past from personal experience. The challenge is without careful monitoring, it seems to get us farther away from actually providing the help that is needed.  And that is my response to this idea of a physician or health care provider shortage. Yes, expert care and specialty care has its place. We have medicines and procedures now that save lives, but I do not believe we actually have a significant shortage of primary care providers; I believe we have unknowingly continuously and gradually taken away the power of individuals and communities to heal and serve one another well through this concentration of power.  We have also provided major corporations with an uncanny ability to expand unhealthy practices - fast food, personal motor vehicles, less green space, suburban homes, the list goes on.  So, we w

We are in the middle of reforming healthcare in our own little way, we are starting a cash pay service for medicine consults.  I cannot wait to see how it evolves, whether is flounders or flourishes. At the end of the day, I hope the message is clear, that medicine belongs to everyone. Our ability to heal one another with 1000 year old traditions or through a smile or through the latest innovations is not sustainable unless we empower one another or remind people of all they can learn from the generations before them... I'm not good with anecdotes or story telling but I would like to share a brief story and how to this day, I wish I had asked... It was well over 20 years ago, by then my grandfather had probably been in this country for about 15 years or so. I don't know much about his story except for he was a police officer in southern Vietnam and a photographer if not by trade, than certainly a passionate pursuit. Early on after their move to the US, from the wreckage left by

dear big hospital institution, my question for you is are you a health (life) giving or a health (life) taking place? if you realize that you were the latter, would you change? how would you change? When does a hospital become just a place of employment? How can we maintain our ability to be a place that offers hope, life, and even perhaps peaceful place of death? How can we empower our patients to take care of their own health? how can we create an environment where health/life reigns supreme and death and dying are respected not an invasive part of society? how can we always recognize the human aspect of what we do in medicine?

what's wrong with a hospital that is too big? does it take away the individual responsibility of caring for their own health. the same way big government takes away the intimate knowledge and responsibility one feels toward their community?  So we might have clean streets, but is it sustainable when the community is only paying for it to some form of taxation 10 steps far removed? Or rather, what is lost - so we have clean streets but we don't know our neighbors?  Has the hospital become a place where people go not only for emergencies, but is the easiest option for someone to go when they don't have a community that knows their name or cares about their health?  Can their hospitals do better? Are there better hospitals?  What about teaching hospitals? highly stratified systems with no one truly invested in your education?  who is teaching who?  who is learning what?  I suppose for now, I will learn what I can, see what's out there through green eyes. Will someone