In class today half of us watched a movie while the other half had their shadowing time. I have watched many inspirational and life changing movie in my teenage year but the award really goes to "Escape Fire". My mind just blown, changed, twisted and then it ran. Stepping into the room that morning, I was did not expect to receive such life changing information. It just hit me and left me baffled.
Being in the Health Academy at my school I got to be exposed to the health field a lot. I learned about viruses, the body systems, drugs, and what a career in health would entitle. I thought that was the gist of it, nothing more. But there is another side of being a doctor that I would have never been exposed to had I not been given the chance to take this course. The movie "Escape Fire" is about our health care system and how it's rather ineffective. Our doctors get paid per patients that they treat. So if they did a surgery, then the patient's health insurance or Medicare reimbursed them a fixed cost for that procedure. It doesn't matter whether they performed the best surgery or if they performed one that was mediocre, they get paid the same. So being in a world where things revolve around Benjamins, they naturally opt to hastily treat more patients than to give the best quality of care to a few. Dr. Erin Martin, in the movie, is one of the few doctors in this world who did not agree with that. Dr. Martin has to see 30 to 40 patients a day and she stopped working when she realized that it wasn't the right thing to do. But unfortunately if a clinic doesn't get enough patients then they will not be able to keep their doors open. I want to grow up to be the kind of doctor who both treat their patients and help them prevent future illnesses. I want to help people to the best of my abilities and not have to be forced by the economy to take shortcuts. To most others who want to pursue medicine for the sake of helping people this information may discourage them but for me, it started a fire of determination. Now there are even going to be even more people who need quality help and this is really not the time to turn away. I hope to be able to fight the logically wrong system that we have right now and not have health care that is run by the government.
The movie also talks about how drug dependent our health care system is. This one soldier in the movie showed that he has about 20 bottles of drugs to help him with pain and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Then after a while he started getting acupuncture instead and he felt even better. The movie also stated they while the U.S. spends about 2.7 trillion dollars per year on health care, we are not even close to the top in health. Our life expectancy is ranked at fifty. Why do we have some of the best medical technologies and treatments but not the healthiest people? Where is all that money going to you ask? Plastic surgery, knee surgery, and dermatology. Some insurance companies actually will cover your plastic surgery bill.
After the movie, our group had a discussion about it. We talked about ways to overcome the quantities over quality issues that we have now. I suggested that doctor should get paid based on their experience and the quality of their work. Have patients take a survey to evaluate their doctors accompany by whether or not the patient has to return to the hospital for reasons regarding the previous visit. But my course instructor said that t might not work because then doctors will start picking healthy looking patients to treat and even more people in need of help would be neglected. Also he said that some doctors are jerks but their quality of work is excellent and vice versa. We spend a while more discussing related subjects and the more we talked the more I thought that the American health care system have buried itself so deep that we ended up in China (You get it? The 17 trillion debt? No? Okay...).
While the first part of the class was a bit sad the second part was full of awesome. We had another speaker, Dr. Kevin Niswender who is a diabetes and metabolism expert. He talked to us about obesity and what caused it. He also talked about insulins and diabetes. At one point he went all college professor on us and he left us all very confused. The after Dr. Niswender was done with his lecture/discussion we had a lesson on giving physical exam. We learned about the four main types of examination. Inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation. When giving physical exam you have to apply these types to each area of examination when applicable. I got to use a stethoscope to listen to my breathing and heartbeats. It was very exciting and it was so much to take in.
There was a big rainstorm/thunderstorm after dinner so we were all stuck in the Commons. Other than that I just hung out around in my room for the rest of the night. Tomorrow I have to wake up nice and early to go for a Basic Life Certification class. I'm so excited!
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