For someone in her 30s, I’ve spent a lot of time in doctors’ offices and hospitals, shivering on exam tables in my open-to-the-front gown, recording my medical history on multiple forms, having enough blood drawn in little glass tubes to satisfy a thirsty vampire. In my early 20s, I contracted a disease that doctors were unable to identify for years—in fact, for about a decade they thought nothing was wrong with me—but that nonetheless led to multiple complications, requiring a succession of surgeries, emergency-room visits, and ultimately (when tests finally showed something was wrong) trips to specialists for MRIs and lots more testing. During the time I was ill and undiagnosed, I was also in and out of the hospital with my mother, who was being treated for metastatic cancer and was admitted twice in her final weeks.
As a patient and the daughter of a patient, I was amazed by how precise surgery had become and how fast healing could be. I was struck, too, by how kind many of the nurses […]
My dear wife and I feel that same torment in our doctors who would really like to be able to spend more time to thoroughly examine in detail all the small symptoms as well as the more pressing things like congestive heart failure, which could become a solution which is better by understanding the relationship between all the symptoms and therefor coming up with a more comprehensive treatment. I believe we need more investment from the federal government which we can obtain by eliminating wars and taxing the rich to bring this economy and our country, especially our health system… Read more »
Both here in Canada, where I reside, and there in the great Unties States, we do not have a health care system. What we have is a desease management system. Yes, we have a very good universal medicare system here in Canada. But what Tommy Douglas – the father of medicare here – told us all back in 1970, is that if we wanted it, every generation would have to fight for it, because the profiteers would try to steal it away, aided and abetted by their paid flunkies and quislings in parliament. That’s exactly what has been happening in… Read more »