Sep
18
Questioning Assumptions in the Debate Over Health Care Reform
September 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Posted by: Kathleen Daniel
In the highly charged atmosphere of debate on health care reform, focused as it is on re-structuring and reigning in costs, there is little dialog that questions our assumptions of how we provide care. That perhaps some of the inefficiencies may be built in to how we currently provide care, and the types of care we provide, so that it is our approach to illness, health, medicine and responsibility itself that needs to be re-thought. Though we posted on the congressional hearings highlighting successful pilot programs using trained health coaches in community health centers and a preventive lifestyle approach, these innovations aren’t yet on the radar. There are few more articulate and authoritative voices than Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D., author of the newly published Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future, to explain how reform that doesn’t include transformation of medicine away from disease intervention to prevention and health promotion is doomed to fail.
As founder and Director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine (and Center of Excellence), Dr. Weil was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2005. There are now 42 academic medical centers that offer integrative medicine programs, including the Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School and Georgetown, Duke and Columbia Universities.
It’s no secret that conventional medicine operates on a disease-based model. Costs – and failures – accrue from orienting care to focus on people after they are already ill. Profits generated by patentable pharmaceuticals diverts attention away from safe and simple lifestyle interventions that shift responsibility and control for health to individuals, and provide better, less costly outcomes.
Integrative medicine emphasizes prevention over treatment and focuses on nutrition, botanical medicine, and mind-body interventions to complement conventional synthetic drug and surgery protocols. Dr. Weil believes that combining both mainstream and evidence-based alternative medicine lead to optimum patient care. Mainstream medicine is well-suited to crisis intervention, and alternative medicine is valuable for prevention and health maintenance. By intelligently combining both, healing can focus on strengthening the body’s own internal healing mechanisms.
An interesting feature of the Center of Integrative Medicine’s program is the guiding principle is that doctors have a responsibility to be models of healthy living. The program incorporates structured time for meditation, exercise, and socializing as part of its physician training.
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