“For those so
inclined, COOPERATION and COLLABORATION will become the ‘soul food’ of life
and health.”
HIPPOCRATES MD:
The Transformation of Healthcare
29 Dec 2005
From "Casting the Vision" HIPPOCRATES MD The Transformation of Healthcare, Mary F. Zesiewicz, M.D., Thornton Publishing, Inc. , 2005
I am a Board Certified Psychiatrist and have been in practice for the last twenty years. For at least fifteen of those years, I've been acutely aware that there are flaws with our health delivery system. While I see that the quality of conventional health technology improving, I see the delivery of this care getting worse and worse. Frankly, our delivery system is in a shambles.
This book is dedicated to the creation of communication between and the implementation of an integrative or collaborative model of healthcare. In principle, when people or systems communicate, problems get resolved. There is an inherent maturity of the parties or systems involved. Collaboration implies that each party is open to examine and evaluate the total picture from the other's perspective. Integration allows the two separate systems to work together to become one.
In health care today, there are two different worlds: the Conventional Health care system, consisting primarily of medications and surgery, and the Complementary and Alternative Medicine care system (known as CAM- and referred to as Complementary Health in this book). Each, in and of itself, is quite a large system. The Conventional Health care industry annually exceeds a trillion dollars in the U.S. alone. Complementary Health is rapidly rising in popularity and account for billions of dollars in annual expenditures and it is expected to exceed a trillion dollars by year 2010.
What's most disturbing is the near total lack of communication between these two huge systems of health care....
It is the consumer that is caught in these two worlds. it is largely through the internet and word of mouth that the consumer attempts to stay abreast of new natural health advances. There is a rise in public awareness that the 'feel ill take a pill' philosophy is not enough. Many in the U.S. utilize employer health plans and visit primary care doctors. Often patients DO NOT tell their primary care doctor about the natural health supplements they are taking or the other Complementary Health treatment modalities they utilize. This is not to put the blame on them. A 5-10 minute "medication check" appointment scarcely leaves time to discuss how they are feeling physically.
True collaboration involves a great deal of effort and energy. It involves stepping out of one's comfort zone and viewing a situation through the eyes of another. It involves asking a lot of questions and being open to actively learning. Collaboration implies that each party acknowledges and validates each others existence. It means one party is not threatened or intimidated by the other. It implies wanting to work together for the best interest of higher goals and understanding each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Lack of communcation or collaboration is of great risk in any relationship. Personal relationships disintegrate due to lack of communciation. The same is true of our health care delivery system. It is the system that communicates and collaborates that will survive. The systems that do not will perish.
Mary F. Zesiewicz, M.D.
Below is a review of “HIPPOCRATES MD: The Transformation of Healthcare” by Mary F. Zesiewicz, M.D. by Burton Danet, Ph.D., Co-Founder, A Better Community For All (ABC4All)
Two Scenarios:
1. I am in a
hospital/rehabilitation center. I
am in an extremely debilitated condition, having just experienced a devastating
“Triple Trip and Fall” accident: http://prweb.com/releases/2002/12/prweb00000052829.php
Not only am I suffering from two broken wrists, exquisite pain, uncontrolled
dangerous high blood pressure (220/110 mmHg), extraordinary debilitation
requiring intensive rehabilitative care, but I receive word from my Health
Maintenance Organization (HMO) that my insurance coverage has been terminated. Now, on top of all that I am suffering, I must do what it
takes to find out how to protest this decision, engage the help of cooperating
agencies, and work, eventually towards having this arbitrary and WRONG decision
reversed. This heroic effort
clearly compromises my ability to heal sooner, rather than later.
2. Approximately a year
following #1 scenario, I experience a stroke causing short-term speech, memory
and concentration difficulties, long-term numbness from head to toe on the right
side of my body, severe “off the charts” glaucoma with blurry vision making
it all but impossible to work at the computer, and many other debilitating
symptoms. Having been formally
diagnosed with “FIBROMYALGIA” by the Medical Director of the Cedars-Sinai
Fibromyalgia Pain and Treatment Program in Los Angeles (although that condition
was the hallmark of more than 35 years of a lifetime of rehabilitation efforts),
I was losing the ability to exercise, becoming lightheaded and nearly fainting
(actually fainting twice) even with walking short distances.
Then I am introduced to Plasma Activated Water (PAW) by my associate,
Robert “Bob” Chew: http://ABC4All.net/bc.htm.
Within 12 hours, the chronic, long-term pain and suffering associated
with the debilitating “FIBROMYALGIA” begins to lessen.
Shortly thereafter, I begin to experience recovery, rehabilitation and
rejuvenation never before experienced despite a lifetime of rehabilitation and
the use of multiple modalities, many of which had been extraordinarily helpful
but none of which led to the type of recovery and rejuvenation I began to
experience with Plasma Activated Water (PAW): http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/6/prweb127499.htm.
Over a two-year period, it became possible to document self-observations
about this healing process: http://ABC4All.net/paw.htm
The above two scenarios
contrast sharply with one another, but point strongly to total support for the
many concepts created in a short, easy-to-read and well founded dissertation by
Mary F. Zesiewicz, M.D.: "HIPPOCRATES:
The Transformation of Healthcare:”