Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Powerful message to healthcare providers & patients

"Of the patients you see, one-third will not improve no matter what you do, one-third can improve with your help and one-third would improve without you. Your responsibility is to help the middle third improve as much as possible without harming the third that would improve without you."

Quoted from a retiring chairman of a prestigious teaching university hospital, this message was given at grand rounds to the class of incoming cardiology residents. Counseling Today October 2008, p. 50

Though this is a broad generalization, I am caught by the focus on not harming the third of patients who will get better on their own! How does that happen? As a patient, is it the lack of understanding of how the human body is designed to heal itself? Is it the overwhelming Big Pharma media budget convincing us we are sick with a multitude of "syndromes" and need drugs to survive? Are we driven by such fear of illness and death that we are willing to be experimented on? Are healthcare providers so stressed and pressured by bottom-line administrators that they are taking shortcuts to our health, sometimes with tragic results? Or, have we lost contact with our inner voices of healing, to connect with nature, to believe in a power greater than ourselves....?

I could also extrapolate that only one-third of the time will I benefit from healthcare... perhaps the first question a receptionist should ask is, which third are you today? jcd

1 comment:

The Wild Bunch! said...

hello i'm sharon and i liked your message to all very well said and agree totally. have a beautiful day or life and always think about things before you go off the edge.