healthcare Archives - Page 4 of 4

Underinsured, Underdiagnosed and Anonymous: My Hormonal Hardships, Part 5

Published on March 8, 2012

2233 views

My radiologist had actually become my primary doctor, as the oncologist remained largely unavailable to me, especially so after hearing the news that my health insurance would lapse within the coming months. The oncologist increased my dosage of radiation, and rescheduled my GI, endoscopy, and radiology follow-up exams to earlier dates. The radiation office not only waived a significant portion of their own service fees for me due to the situation, but also helped us to handle a big part of the lengthy medical dispute we were facing with our insurance company. They eradicated most of the tumor, but could not remove my residual scar tissue, before our COBRA expired. Even with all that they had done for us up until then, there were still strict systematic limits as to what they were permitted to do for us after that time. Not only was I without insurance yet again (my husband was too), but I was also now without the support system that had been my radiologist and their crew—something that was much much harder to overcome than I had expected it to be.

I was in remission, but back to square one as far as access to medical coverage went. I was in remission, but I had undergone medically-induced premature ovarian failure, and was deemed post-menopausal before I would even reach my thirties. I was in remission, but couldn’t take hormone replacement therapy or herbal alternatives, because I was already at increased risk for recurring and/or second cancers. I was in remission, but had semi-permanent radiation scars and temporary post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment. I was in remission, but I still wasn’t well enough to return to work, go to school full-time, or to take a belated and long overdue honeymoon yet. I was in remission, but I was depressed, and didn’t know how to move forward without the regular group of doctors and nurses who had been there for me emotionally only a week before.

Why was my life saved (and through such extreme measures), only to be put right back at risk, through the ever-incipient denial of insurance, medical assistance, and access to healthcare? What was the point of it all?? It felt like maybe I shouldn’t have been striving so hard to live, but instead perhaps that I should simply have accepted the inevitability of my own death (something I am now faced with every day that I do wake up in the morning, anyways). My husband had only been able to find part-time jobs, since his old workplace had closed. So, we knew that we would have to move out-of-state to get the help that we needed. We just hadn’t anticipated that it would be even harder to get coverage, aid, or access, once we left. And, we still don’t know how much harder it will get, as we continue to race border-state budget cuts and residency requirements, just trying to keep me alive. Sometimes, it’s hard not to doubt that we’ll make it in time at all.

I have always worked hard, and I’ve always tried to give back to the community. I was glad to pay my dues, and happy to put in my time. So, I have an exceptionally hard time understanding how so many have come to turn their backs on me as I ask them to help keep me from dying, if not from hurting, particularly when that’s supposed to be their job. How come I’m not worth your time and attention? Why don’t I deserve to live? What’s so wrong with me, that you can’t even tell me what’s wrong with me?

I wish that I could leave you with a happier ending, but this never-ending vicious cycle has not left us with much optimism, hope, or spare change, ourselves. Aside from knowing that my tumor is back, we don’t know just how bad it is. What we are gravely aware of is that I am out of the safety net and into the danger zone for lymph and bone involvement plus metastatic cancer growth. It’s proven impossible to get a standard colonoscopy and biopsy at my age (twenty-plus years too young) without a doctor’s order, and impossible to get a doctor’s order without insurance or assistance (but, you’ve already heard that story before). …all this, even in spite of my personal history of colon cancer… And, it will be equally impossible to get any traditional treatment if/when the cancer spreads to my liver or lungs, too. But, at least nobody will be talking about colostomy bags then, anymore. When we do find the rare body scanning clinic that will take cash patients on self-referral, they all also inevitable deny me the less-invasive virtual colonoscopy because I’m “still in my childbearing years” even though I’m medically documented as being POF, and haven’t had a period in over six years now. You’d think it would be a non-issue, but for some reason it isn’t. Maybe someone out there can understand our fear and despair, but a lot of other people just don’t seem to care.

I wrote my story anonymously because I fear the social repercussions and potential backlash of publicly revealing my real name in association with my disease and disorders. I am uninsured and told by many, uninsurable.

Why Citizens United, Feckless Politicians and Misogynist Radio Hosts are good for Women’s Rights

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 6, 2012

2760 views

Yes, you read that correctly. The current diatribes and debates about women’s health and our rights to health care are a good thing. We are seeing, perhaps for the first time in a very long while, what many individuals and organizations really think about women’s rights. For this we have the Supreme Court and Citizens United to thank.

Citizens United, the infamous Supreme Court decision that decreed corporate personhood, cemented a long brewing trend in American political conscience favoring the rights and goals of corporations and institutions over those of individuals. More than simply allowing organizations or the super-rich to buy politicians of their choosing and do so entirely unencumbered by messy citizen-based fundraising or even approval, Citizen’s United capped, like an exclamation point, the corporate and institutional priorities of the last half of the 20th century.

Unhindered by legality, or even the good sense to mask a blatant trampling of the rights of human citizens, organizational power, under the corporate personhood decision, can now progress to its logical absurdity, which it is doing with astonishing alacrity. And women’s rights are in the cross-hairs.

Nothing but the pure hubris that comes with the unbridled power of corporate sponsored politicians can explain the all-male congressional hearings on women’s health, the Blunt Amendment or the continued political capitulation to the vile diatribes of a male radio host who debases women with every breath. Did they really think these events would go unnoticed by the female population? Obviously, they did. How else does one explain such a huge strategic error in political engineering? Even a neophyte political operative, if asked, would have suggested at least giving the appearance of inclusion of women or paying lip-service to those with differing opinions, if only to manage the optics.

With corporate personhood and corporate sponsored politicians, many politicians, it appears, believe that managing the optics is no longer necessary. Forget about working for the citizenry that the politician was elected to represent (that was lost long ago) it is much more expedient to manage the ‘corporate persons’ that sponsor one’s political longevity. In many ways, politicians in this post-Citizen’s United world are freer to behave in accordance with their actual beliefs. This includes favoring the prerogatives of the corporation or large organization over those of individuals; and as we’ve seen in recent weeks, throwing women’s health under the bus.

I would argue, however, that this is dire mistake, because despite the apparent victory that Citizen’s United granted corporations and other large organizations, it was rooted in 20^th century trends (and even earlier ideological foundations). Romney’s ill-fated “corporations are people” bespoke a critical truth, too quickly ignored. A corporation is not a unified entity, with a monolithic point-of-view, no matter how much money those at the top decide to throw at their chosen politician or desired political goals.

Corporations are comprised of millions of actual citizens (>50% are women) who are technologically connected and capable of launching powerful movements for or against their corporate or political leaders. Indeed, corporations and politicians are far more dependent upon the goodwill the citizenry than most realize. Consider the social media onslaught that befell proponents of the heavy-handed, industry-sponsored legislation to curtail online piracy (SOPA/PIPA) or the more recent attempt to block public access to tax-payer funded scientific research (HR3699/RWA). Both bills were blocked by internet activism. And these were relatively arcane bills. Imagine the power of millions of angry, connected women? Talk about a countervailing force to Citizen’s United, corporate shenanigans and feckless politicians; yes, this war on women is a good thing. It is awakening a sleeping giant. What this giant will do is anyone’s guess, but I’d hate to be the wrong side.

Redefining Healthcare for Women

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on February 7, 2012

1812 views

As the dust settles on the Komen Foundation decisions of last week, I am reminded once again how compartmentalized and politicized the notion of women’s health has become. Boobs and wombs seem to represent the sum total of interest in women’s health. And if the Komen fiasco is any indication, one can’t care about both, because where one stands or one’s employer stands on reproductive issues is now becoming the litmus test that permits or denies access to care. If you are a woman, that is. No such criteria exist in men’s health.

Women’s health is inherently political. We carry the responsibility of continuing the species. With that responsibility inevitably comes intrusion (no pun intended). We seem to forget, however, that women have cancer (not just breast), heart disease, diabetes, immune diseases and the whole host of illnesses that are unrelated to whether or not we bear children. Certainly, whether we have born children impacts these diseases, more so than many are willing to admit, but what we think about birth has nothing to do with our health and should have nothing do with our access to healthcare.

As a private organization, Komen has every right to change its mission. It has every right to fund only those organizations that align with their political or religious views. If it believes strongly in those views, then it should change its mission and hold to it. However, Komen should be prepared for mass defunding from those who don’t share the same ideology. Early signs of this were evident last week.

There is no delicate or politically adroit way around this issue for Komen and other organizations who believe that views on reproductive rights trump a woman’s access to healthcare or an agency’s access to research funding. If that is the litmus test, however, then say so. Take the stand and own the results. Tell the world that your organization provides preventative healthcare, supports breast cancer research and other activities only for some women and only for organizations that share your views.

Then let the rest of us get on with the business of providing healthcare and research for all women.

The match game of healthcare that works (Part III)

by Deb Andelt, JD

Published on November 15, 2011

1717 views

Care for yourself by assessing the “care” in your healthcare

There’s a lot of discussion both within the medical profession and among average everyday patients and family members about what constitutes “quality” healthcare and “care” in general. As with most things in life, the nature of the discussion reflects the frame of reference of those doing the discussing. The result: care is defined, and measured, differently depending on who is involved.

For providers, “care” is typically what they can easily measure

Hospitals generally tend to consider quality care, and its measurement, in three categories: 1) what didn’t happen, for example: decreasing re-admissions or reducing or eliminating adverse drug interactions and infections, and of course the ultimate “never event” ‒ no deaths; 2) patient improvements on any number of laboratory tests that may be relevant for what is desired to be measured; and 3) patient satisfaction survey scores which typically provide patients a list of “events” and ask patients to rate what occurred or didn’t occur, such as: did staff members introduce themselves and did they listen.

For practitioners, their measure of quality of care may be similar to what hospitals measure. It’s not uncommon to see practitioners list services, treatments or procedures as a means to communicate the type of “care” they provide. Non-allopathic physicians (NDs, TCMs, etc.) may related quality of care to improvements in the health and well-being of their patients based on how their medical sciences define health. (see The match game of healthcare that works ‒ Part II: Make healthcare truly about you – your personal definition of “health).

All of these things identified as aspects, qualities or attributes of “care” are quantifiable in numbers. Being in the shoes of the patient, or family member, the question to ask is: do those numbers add up to care that you care about?

For patients, “care” is how they feel

Patients seek healthcare to feel better.

“Patient care is emotional work.” *

From both the patient and physician perspective, emotion and care are intertwined. Yet how patients feel is rarely central to identifying, measuring, or achieving “care” that matters to the patient. Such an emotional framework may be considered elusive because emotions are deemed to be intangible. Yet with a manageable framework, we can do this. If the industry isn’t doing this in a way that is meaningful to patients, perhaps like the “we are the 99%; Occupy Wall Street” movement, it’s up to patients and their families to identify the emotional attributes and measure care that matters.

Create your personal assessment of “care”

As a starting point, do you know the healing feelings? When we experience the feelings of being:
• comfortable
• understood
• connected
• strengthened
• renewed

Those feeling set the stage for our mind/body systems to heal. These feelings will be your guide to know when your experience is one of “healthcaring.” If these healing feelings don’t resonate with you, find five other feelings that reflect how you want to feel at each step in a healthcare experience.

Whether you’re at a regular appointment with a physician, at a lab for tests, or contemplating procedures at a hospital, follow this simple three step assessment to determine if you’re experiencing “care” that supports you. At each stage in your interaction:

• Pause: At meaningful moments in the experience, pause and pay attention to what’s going on – what are you seeing, smelling, touching, hearing, or even tasting.
• Connect: Then connect with what you’re feeling, find the words for how you feel.
• Assess: Weigh how frequently you were feeling one of the healing feelings (or some other positive emotion) and how often you were feeling something not as positive.

Keep a small notebook handy to track this. Moments in the experience go by quickly. What you end up with may partially look like this:
• Walking in, I’m overwhelmed and anxious because the directions I had were bad, I got lost, and now I’m late.
• As I’m greeted, I feel a bit calmer, more comfortable; the man at the front desk was friendly and greeted me by name.
• While filling out paperwork I’m frustrated. As a returning patient, I’m thinking surely with technology there has to be a way to see my past information and simply update.
• Post paperwork, I’m a bit more relaxed, fairly comfortable. The waiting area has comfortable chairs, not to close together, no loud discussions.
• Being guided through the building or space, I have no idea where I’m going and don’t feel comfortable I can find my way back out or find a restroom.
• I feel grateful, strengthened even, when talking with my physician; she let me talk for a full 30 minutes and tell her everything; she asked relevant questions; as a result I feel understood.
• Leaving, I’m confused. I have a piece of paper with brief instructions of what to do next, but on reflection I don’t remember all of the conversation and these limited notes are insufficient to feel confident that I can manage my care.

Why how you feel matters to your well-being

We all know how important positive emotions are to our well-being and how disruptive negative emotions are to our healing. If our healthcare experience is filled with more aspects that trigger negative emotions, we’re actually going a bit backwards – or at least we may find ourselves feeling like we now have to catch up to our prior point of “being.” Supporting positive feelings throughout each aspect of the experience should be part of the “care” healthcare providers provide.

Along with your personal worldview of health, your definition of health, this process is a valuable component to determine what organizations and practitioners you will partner with for your well- being. If you don’t feel “good” about something or someone, that’s your cue to adjust and make a change. Remember, these feelings are influencing your overall health and well-being every moment of the day.

Note: This is part an ongoing series to equip you with a process, a path, to identify and experience healthcare that works for you.
— Foundation: The heart of healthcare that works: know your personal worldview of health: http://www.hormonesmatter.com/the-heart-of-healthcare-that-works-know-your-personal-worldview-of-health/
— The match game of healthcare that works series ‒ Part I: Understand the landscape set by insurance companies: http://www.hormonesmatter.com/the-match-game-of-health-care-that-works-part-1/
— The match game of healthcare that works series ‒ Part II: Make healthcare truly about you – your personal definition of “health”: http://www.hormonesmatter.com/the-match-game-of-healthcare-that-works-part-ii/

Deb is co-owner of Experience In Motion, which equips organizations with tools to curate meaningful experiences for customers and employees. Deb’s personal journey from decay to well-being inspired an emphasis in improving healthcare experiences for patients and practitioners by focusing on experiences that heal, and self-caring as a way of organizational being. www.experienceinmotion.net.

*http://depts.washington.edu/toolbox/emotion.html

The Match Game Of Healthcare That Works (Part II)

by Deb Andelt, JD

Published on October 22, 2011

2320 views

“What is the sign of a healthy person? Such a person is happy anywhere. He or she is relaxed everywhere – always at ease and in peace, within and without. Even in hell, such a person will be at ease. A healthy person hates no one, dislikes nothing. Total love, universal love emanates from within. There is no tension anywhere, no stress or friction. These are the signs of real health.”

Swami Satchidananda

Make healthcare truly about you – your personal definition of “health”

From Part I of this Match Game series you have a sense of how a payment system (health insurance) has been setting the playing field determining what constitutes health and well-being for millions of Americans.

To experience healthcare that works for you, we have to change the nature of the game – “reset” our current paradigm. This reset starts with your personal worldview of health and the relationship, or lack of relationship, between the physical, mental and emotional bodies (see related article). This worldview will naturally integrate with your definition of health and well-being.

Crafting your personal worldview of health likely resulted in one of two primary worldviews:
• Newtonian – from the namesake of Isaac Newton. Very simply, in this worldview the world is seen as a mechanical machine. The physical body is like a machine, divided into parts to be worked on like a machine. Mind and emotions have little, if any, impact on the physical being. Healing is rarely considered. Practitioners treat illness or disease in separate parts of the physical body.
• Quantum – from understanding the world through the lens of quantum physics. Very simply, at a quantum level everything is interconnected. Physical, emotional and mental aspects of our being influence each other. Our outer world and inner world are also connected. Consciousness matters. This worldview encompasses healing. Practitioners treat the person, not the disease.

You may have a blended worldview, or a different lens for different circumstances. Whatever your result, keep this in mind as you explore the nature of “health.”

What is health? What is well-being? And, where does healing fit in?

Health does not mean the same thing to all people. Reflect on the nature of health described in the opening quote of this article. It is basically about one’s “being-ness.” No mention of disease or of physical vitality.

Healthcare physicians, practitioners, all have a different view of what constitutes health, which has been influenced by their field study and experience. Physicians can only engage with you from their framework of knowledge and understanding. As a result, for example, you can now see that talking about well-being from a quantum lens with a physician with a Newtonian framework is a mismatch on many levels. It’s likely both of you will be frustrated. Having a mismatched partnership is not a good foundation for well-being and healing.

You deserve health and care that fits YOUR unique being, your worldview. These are very personal decisions. To find people for your healthcare team requires matching healthcare providers concepts of health to your beliefs and principles. The starting point is not a list provided by an insurance company. The starting point is your worldview of well-being and your personal definition of health.

Every medical science, from ancient sciences to current sciences, has a definition or a guiding principle of what “health” means. Just like worldviews, these generally fall into two categories.

Newtonian health science

The current dictionary definition of health is “freedom from disease.” This is the view followed by most allopathic doctors (M.D.s). This is the mechanical worldview. The physical body is a machine made up of parts. Think about that list of practitioners found in health insurance paperwork – it’s a list that divides the body into parts. This health science focuses on disease management. Osteopathic medicine (D.O.s) uses the same tools, treatments and technologies of medicine as M.D.s, so for these very general purposes, they fall in the Newtonian field.

If your worldview is generally Newtonian, you will likely be satisfied with allopathic specialists. For each symptom you may need to seek a new “mechanic” to address different parts of your body. You may be the one coordinating care between the various pieces.

Quantum health sciences

While quantum physics is considered a new science, the ancient medical sciences viewed “health” through a quantum lens ‒ systems of health in which everything is connected. Side effects don’t exist in these older sciences. There are only “effects” because these sciences have studied well-being and the impact of all their treatments and medicines on the entire mind/body/spirit system for hundreds and thousands of years. These health sciences focus on healing, eliminating the root causes of suffering, and balance.

Ancient sciences include:

• Ayurveda is the traditional medicine from India, the sister science of yoga. You may be familiar with this from Deepak Chopra. Ayurveda is the science of life, with a very precise definition of health. “Health is the state where the Tridosha, digestive fire, body tissues and components, and physiological processes are in perfect unison; and the soul and the sense organs and mind are in a state of total satisfaction and content.” While this seems to be a complex definition filled with Sanskrit words, the point is for 5,000 years this science has focused on what a healthy mind/body system is, and how to measure, attain and maintain health.
• Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is derived from Ayurveda, and so there are similarities. Like Ayurveda, it is based on the notion of harmony and balance. Health is viewed as a means to a good life – when an individual lives in harmony with her community and her physical and spiritual environment. Many people are familiar with acupuncture, a primary TCM treatment to create overall balance.

Mid-millennium sciences include:

• Homeopathy, which is about 200 years old, believes one has a state of health when you experience freedom and creativity. It’s interesting to consider how this seemingly simple definition effortlessly integrates physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of well-being. Disease is considered a breakdown of vital forces and can only be known according to symptoms – so all “symptoms” are of equal importance in treating the whole person.
• Naturopathy evolved from homeopathy. Naturopathic medical schools include curriculum a range of medical sciences including TMC, homeopathy and herbal medicines.

If your worldview in primarily quantum, you will likely enjoy a positive relationship with doctors practicing these sciences to experience the essence of health you desire. You may still need (or want) a team approach. You’ll generally find physicians in the quantum sciences understand something about other quantum sciences, so you can actually achieve complementary care (meaning practitioners, treatments and medicines work well together, not in opposition to each other).

Your definition of health is what equips and empowers you to live your best life

Declaring “I want to be well;” or “I just want to not feel bad and get back to my life;” may seem like simple statements to make when requesting that a medical professional be your partner in well-being. As we see from the viewpoints above, it’s not so simple.

This is why it’s really important to know at a very deep level what you’re seeking. Be as clear with yourself as possible. Research the essence of health, well-being, vitality, healing. This article just provides some basic guidance to get you started. Take your time. And also be willing to evolve or change over time. What starts as a quest for pain relief in a very allopathic sense of suppressing symptoms in a particular location may evolve to wanting to experience peace and freedom, regardless of physical challenges.

Being clear on what health and well-being mean to you puts you in the driver’s seat of this healthcare match game. You have now declared your personal “reset” of the vast and complex healthcare system. You can now confidently:

• Identify practitioners who actually fit your needs.
• Know when you have a mismatch and feel comfortable firing medical professionals who don’t resonate with your needs.
• Communicate effectively with your chosen professionals and develop strong partnerships with them.
• Know when to shift approaches if a particular physician or medicine/treatment isn’t working to support your journey to well-being.
• Spend your time, money and energy wisely, in a way that lets you experience your best life.
• Analyze what payment system (insurance) will work for your health, and make decisions based on what care fits your needs. For example, if TCM or homeopathic is a fit for you, seek a payment system that pays for the care you use. Alternatively, be confident that it’s okay to pay for care rather than contributing to an insurance corporation’s profit for “benefits” that don’t fit your needs and therefore you don’t use. .

Resources you may enjoy to explore this further:
–The Quantum Doctor by Amit Goswami, PhD
–The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton
–Other inspiring people who offer a range of views for your exploration: Deepak Chopra, MD; Larry Dossey, MD; Greg Brayden and Stephen Schwartz

Note: This is part an ongoing series to equip you with a process, a path, to identify and experience healthcare that works for you.
— Foundation: The heart of healthcare that works: know your personal worldview of health: http://www.hormonesmatter.com/the-heart-of-healthcare-that-works-know-your-personal-worldview-of-health/
— The match Game of healthcare that works series ‒ Part I: Understand the landscape set by insurance companies: http://www.hormonesmatter.com/the-match-game-of-health-care-that-works-part-1/
— The match Game of healthcare that works series ‒ Part II: (current article)

Deb is co-owner of Experience In Motion, which equips organizations with tools to curate meaningful experiences for customers and employees. Deb’s personal journey from decay to wellbeing inspired an emphasis in improving healthcare experiences for patients and practitioners by focusing on experiences that heal, and self-caring as a way of organizational being. www.experienceinmotion.net.

Pondering Cancer: the Hubris of Innovation

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on October 5, 2011

2103 views

This week begins breast cancer awareness month, a movement started 25 years ago largely by women and family members affected by cancer. The efforts of these men and women have been extraordinarily successful. Who doesn’t associate the pink ribbons with breast cancer? To boot, the public awareness catalyzed the need for research. The War on Cancer was born and a staggering amount of federal and private dollars research dollars have poured into cancer research. Federal breast cancer research dollars totaled $763 million in 2010.

And yet, except for the years between 1999-2005, which saw a 2% decline in new diagnoses (NCHS, SEER), largely attributed to the post-WHI decline in HRT use, breast cancer rates have increased steadily over the last two decades. The incidence of breast cancer is now 1 in 8 women (SEER). It seems the war on breast cancer has not been won.

I am not a cancer researcher and so my thoughts on cancer are offered with some trepidation. Sure, I did the requisite pharmacology papers and presentations in graduate school and even taught the basics in some of my undergraduate courses, but I don’t really know cancer, not like I know other disease processes. And so, as I pondered the state of cancer and reviewed the statistics, looking for an angle into this post, somewhere I could add to the conversation and not just regurgitate existing pablum, what became clear was a nagging sense of intellectual unease. Despite the billions spent on cancer research and the bevy of new treatments, more women are getting cancer than ever before. Perhaps better diagnostics explain the ever increasing incidence of breast cancer. Perhaps not.

Like so many modern diseases, cancer sits at the nexus between high and low science, between medicine and marketing. It is one of those diseases that at once benefits from 20th-21st century science and technology, and suffers immensely from the hubris of those same innovations.

A case and point: a report by the Personalized Medicine Coalition published three years ago and discussed last year in Bloomberg BusinessWeek indicates that of the $292 billion dollars spent on prescription medications in 2008 almost 50% went to medications that didn’t work. That means in one year, we spent $145 billion on medications that didn’t work. The report goes on to suggest that billions more were spent treating the side effects and adverse reactions.

Aside from the ridiculous amount of money spent on medications that don’t work and the billions more spent mitigating the potentially serious side-effects of these medications, both of which threaten our national economy in a very tangible manner; aside from the economics, the point that may be lost in this conversation, is that we are ingesting these medications and trusting them to work or at least not make us worse.

What happens when medications originally intended for one use are marketed for another? What happens when the need for blockbuster drug sales overshadows the actual benefits of a medication or worse yet, hides the dangers (DES, HRT, Vioxx, Yaz/Yasmin)? What happens when we disregard basic genetics, basic science and common sense when prescribing a medication? What happens when we use the one-size-fits-all or the one pill-cures-all approach?

Are we creating the very cancers we are trying to treat?

The Heart of Healthcare that Works: Know Your Personal Worldview Of Health

by Deb Andelt, JD

Published on September 26, 2011

2906 views

Healthcare Matters

“All the evidence that we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume in practically every human being, and certainly in almost every newborn baby, that there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization.”
– Abraham Maslow

Google “healthcare” and it returns 99,900,000 results. Healthcare seems to be a vast, complex, inconsistent, and perhaps unavailable or expensive system ‒ sometimes seemingly devoid of personal connection. At a minimum, it can be confusing to find what will work for you. Really work for you, on all levels.

Here’s the good news: when you define healthcare for yourself, the path towards growth and actualization Maslow speaks of becomes easier to find and follow. Forget what healthcare is for your best friend, your family, or a generic patient with similar symptoms you read about online. Forget about some list in your health insurance policy. That’s just a list based on contractual relationships, which may or may not relate to what works best for you.

Healthcare is deeply, deeply personal. Only you know what healthcare is for you. It depends on your values, your beliefs, your worldview. And, those can change over time.

Finding healthcare that works for you is a bit like going on a quest – an adventurous exploration. You have to know what you’re seeking, the signposts to know you’re on the right path, and some friendly support along the way (wisdom, people, or places) helps too.

To narrow the vast landscape of healthcare to what will work for you, begin by understanding, or perhaps taking this opportunity to create, your personal worldview of health, healing, and well-being. If your choice of physicians, practices and medicines doesn’t resonate with your worldview, there will be discord. Discord, at a minimum, makes communication with practitioners challenging. In some medical sciences this discord would be believed to have a negative impact on healing at a very deep level. Knowing your worldview gives you a foundation for harmonious choices.

To explore your worldview, some questions to ask yourself include:

• Do you believe health is based on primarily how each part of the physical body separately functions?
• Do you believe the mind can influence the physical body?
• Do you believe there is an interrelationship between mind, body and spirit; a holistic view of your being?
• Do you believe the body is basically like a machine (also identified as a Newtonian view of the world); and should be treated in a mechanical nature?
• Do you believe your choices – from the food you eat, to your relationships (including work), to the surroundings you live in – influence your well-being?
• Do you believe in a “one solution fits most” medicine; or that each person is unique and therefore may require varying paths to well-being, even if the diagnosis or symptoms are similar?
• Do you believe in treating the illness or the person with an illness?
• Do you believe in focusing on the disease (diagnosis, symptoms); or on health and well-being?
• Do you believe in healing, curing, pacifying symptoms, or something else? Or all of those in different situations?
• Do you generally believe in an interconnected world? Or a world where all beings and things are separate?

Answering these types of questions will significantly narrow the landscape of your quest – narrow down what will work for you. No one can answer these for you. You may want to write a personal worldview statement to crystallize your worldview.

Equipped with your personal worldview of health you can then move on to the next steps in your quest:

• Identify what health, well-being and healing mean to you
• Know what qualities of care are important to you
• Understand what “medicines” resonate with you

In the coming articles we’ll delve into each of those areas with more questions to help you find healthcare that works for you.

Perspective is Everything in Women’s Health

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on August 23, 2011

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As the economy and political situation continue to spiral with the frenetic, manic-depressive, mood swings of a toddler in the cereal aisle, the rest of us are left wondering what the…

Don’t they get it? Don’t they see what we see? Maybe not. With $174,000-$223,000 annual salaries and guaranteed health insurance that includes private personal physicians who provide routine medical care at no, or minimal charge, it is difficult if not impossible for Congress to feel the pain and uncertainty that the $38,000 per year teacher feels or that the unemployed construction worker must feel. It’s a matter of perspective and perception, neither of which seem focused on what matters most.

As the women’s healthcare debate heats up again, one can’t help but wonder if the difference in perspective is what propels statements like those from Senator Kyl earlier this year: “I don’t need maternity care. And so requiring it to be in my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and that will make the policy more expensive.” From his perspective, that of an older, male Senator, buffeted by a great salary and irrevocable health insurance, he is correct. He does not need a maternity rider on his policy.

Likewise, as a 40 something woman, I don’t, nor will I ever have, erectile dysfunction or a need for prostate cancer coverage, so why should I pay for those items in my policy? For that matter, why should my tax or insurance dollars, go towards anything that I don’t personally need or want?

I didn’t intend this blog to be a political or economic commentary, but the disconnect between the on-going political folly and reality are strikingly analogous to what many women experience when faced with a chronic, hormone-related condition. So many women among us live for years with pain, are often misdiagnosed repeatedly, sometimes even told,‘this is normal’ or ‘it’s just your hormones’ as if to say, it’s not important enough to merit consideration. Like with Senator Kyl, there is a disconnect between what is needed and what is perceived as needed.

How do we bridge that gap? It’s obvious to any woman who has experienced a chronic hormone or menstrual-related health condition that more research is needed. It is unconscionable that endometriosis, for example, which affects >10% of the female population, takes 5-10 years to diagnose (Arruda et al. 2003; Hsu, Khachikyan & Stratton 2010, Pugsley & Ballard, 2006). It is even more troubling that the first line of treatment is oral contraceptives, as it is for many women’s health conditions. Oral contraceptives are fabulous for birth control, but do they really work for all gynecological conditions? Are the hormonal indices for endometriosis the same as those for PCOS or for PMS? Are we all so similar that one pill will fix everything?

In light of the current discourse on women’s health, which includes such brain twisters as whether pregnancy is a pre-existing condition and men ought to be responsible for contributing to maternity care to ‘do women deserve preventative healthcare’ (thankfully, the IOM says yes) and my favorite, the whole pap smears at Walgreens suggestion, it’s not difficult to see why gaps in women’s health research still exist. It is also clear that the tenor and content of public discourse, and as a consequence, the direction of research and public policy, are important and must be brought back to stuff that matters. For many women, and the men who love them, women’s healthcare and research are important.

Even though I personally will not ever need prostate cancer treatment or research, the men in my life may, and so I don’t begrudge the dollars spent for those endeavors. I think many men feel the same about women’s healthcare and research. Help us bring the conversation back to what matters. Help us prove that hormones are important in women’s health research and care.

Stand up and tell your story.

Hormones Matter

Where health, hormones, and a whole bunch of other stuff, make sense.

healthcare - Page 4

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