The
Healing Arts
“Not
following up with your [people] is the same as filling up your bathtub without
putting the stopper in the drain.”
Michelle
Moore (Selling Simplified)
I’m
going for my follow-up appointment today—staples come out and I get to ask as
many questions as I want of…whoever sees me. Maybe the PA, maybe the nurse…not
likely the surgeon. I am learning that things have changed drastically in the
medical industry in the last fifteen years. I know this sounds corny, but I
came of age in the days when a physician’s loyalty was to his/her patients and
not to a massive national hospital conglomerate. In the past, the caseload of
physicians was managed to give each patient ample time to be seen, assessed,
advised, have their concerns addressed and give them guidance back to health. When
I called the surgeon’s office to make a follow-up appointment last week, I was
asked, “Do you want 8:40 or 8:50?” Ten minutes, tops. Get them in, get them
out, bill their insurance, keep those dollars flowing into the hospital
coffers.
This is
not a blog about the good old days, even though I miss them. It is about the role
of paying attention and being present in the healing of human beings. When I
asked my surgeon at discharge after the surgery for his advice about follow-up
rehabilitation—home health care or in-house rehab—his response was, “Just tell
me what you want to do!” Now, I am deeply appreciative for his excellent hands
and the skill they wield, but I am a whole human being, as I’m sure you are,
and at that moment, I felt cast aside. Surgeons have the reputation for being
difficult and grandiose, and people fear them as much as appreciate them. I
guess my question is, do training programs teach med-students that caring about
their patients is as therapeutic as fixing someone’s bad knee? Do they know the
healing power of genuine interest and respect?
Follow-up
in any area is important. Taking time to sit down and write thankyou notes to
the array of individuals who took care of me while I was unable to care for
myself is one such follow-up. It’s time-consuming and awkward, and sometimes my
memory is not so good—did they bring the walker, or the brownies?? But the
effort to follow-up with a sincere thank you, puts a little sparkle in their
lives, and, as my mother would say, “a star in your crown.” And Lord knows, I
need as many stars in that sucker as I can get, given my ill-tempered personality.
I wonder
where all this consumerism stops. Is there anything in the world that is not subject
to it now? When even the healing professions are more interested in human
beings as a commodity—a “total knee replacement” or a “gallbladder excision”—then
we have taken those same sacred arts and made them not much more than a butcher’s
block—how thick do you want it, how many? “Just tell me what you want!” Reminds
me of some of the delis in New York—"Don’t slow me down! There’s money to
be made here!”
I hope
your day is blessed with people who care about you. Namaste.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment