| Topic Name: |
MD seeking MBA |
| Message Name: |
Check out funding for Public Health... |
| Date Posted: |
07/13/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
This is going to seem like a huge task and my program director laughed at me but I know it is possible to change health care by changing the patients. What I mean is - we take care of the patient when he/she comes into the hospital or your office, however what happens when they go home. It all comes down to the conditions of your enviornment. It doesnt matter if you are in a inner city or upper class suburban neighborhood - education is the key. Education about drugs (Probably the biggest reason for hospital admission- or at least related), health and medicine- for everybody.
Im not going to go into too much here and believe me there is more. But I'll leave you with this one question- Can America tolerate a predominantly healthy society? |
| Message: |
Changing the health behavior of the population falls into the world of public health (probably the LEAST funded area of medicine in existence)! The entrenched powers that be (pharmaceutical companies, the AMA, others) have every incentive to NOT SUPPORT public health initiatives. No lung cancer (i.e no smoking); no need for lung cancer drugs and expensive treatments...
Read Betrayal of Trust: the Failure of the Global Public Health System, especially the chapters about the US and you will gain a good understandign of why the US health system is in its current sorry state (i.e. tens of millions of uninsured, 3rd world-esque rates of communicable diseases (especially among minorities), high infant mortality rates, etc.).
Also read Cancer Wars about how the Medical Industrial Complex (and teh government) have focused onthe TREATMENT of cancer versus its prevention...There is no (short-term) money in prevention...only in treatment....
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