Tag: society

Categories
Lifestyle Public Health Reflection

#BoPo: Body positivity in the age of obesity

When I was younger, I loved watching the televised broadcasts of New York Fashion Week. I grew up in the heyday of heroin chic, which meant that the runway was a seemingly endless parade of vampire-pale, stick-thin waifs. I knew I would never grow up to look like these women, no matter how hard I tried. Even though I was perfectly happy to develop my own unique sense of style, I had an awareness that no one on television looked like me.

Fast forward two decades. The landscape of beauty has changed dramatically. I can’t yet say we’re living in a whole new world, but as a society, we’re making steady progress toward diversifying our expectations of beauty. More colors, shapes, sizes, and sexual identities are being beamed over the airwaves and into our living rooms.

The strides we’ve made toward diversifying our media did not just happen overnight. They occur as part of a larger historical context that has rebelled against normative standards of beauty for decades. The Fat Acceptance Movement, started in the mid 1960’s, is considered to be an offshoot of Second Wave Feminism. In 1967, the group held a 500 person “fat-in” in Central Park, NY wherein people carried signs of pro-fat messages and burned diet books. This was followed in 1969 by the creation of the National Association to Aid Fat Americans (NAAFA) which held a yearly summer convention until 2015. More recently, in 1996, the Body Positivity Movement was started by friends Connie Sobczak and Elizabeth Scott. Their goal was to help girls and women foster positive self-images so they could lead more fulfilling lives. Today it exists as an organization known as the Body Positive. Just a few weeks ago, this organization hosted the third annual CurvyCon. This convention was organized by two self-described plus size fashion bloggers to help women “chat curvy, shop curvy and embrace curvy.” All of these organizations and movements undoubtedly have their own platforms, but what they all share is a desire for bodies of all appearances to be accepted into society.

I firmly believe that every body is worth loving, but moreover, that every body is a body worth caring for. I see care as being a balance between the emotional and physical aspects of well-being. While I am hopeful that the shifting tide of acceptance in media translates more broadly to mean that us non-Hollywood folk also find value in ourselves and others no matter our physical appearance, as a health care provider, I am concerned that the Body Positivity Movement may be construed as an acceptance of obesity. If we accept ourselves for who we are, and who we are is unhealthy, then I question whether we are really showing ourselves the love that we claim.

I think what the Body Positivity Movement does well is emphasize self-value on the emotional spectrum of care. Where body positivity endeavors seem to lag, however, is in the promotion of physical health. Physical health can be just as challenging to realize as emotional health, yet it is just as important. Diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia are real diseases whose prevalence strongly correlates with obesity. They do not discriminate between people who love their bodies and those who don’t. They can affect and ultimately kill anyone whose body mass index falls into an unhealthy range. Our government makes the realization of physical health all the more difficult by setting up barriers for people to receive quality health insurance. Financial barriers are only one aspect of this problem. Any policy that allows for the proviso of health barriers, in the form of exclusions, special criteria, and added financial burden for people with pre-existing conditions, is a policy that does not believe all people to be equally worthy of care and is therefore an injustice.

Even though a key focus of the Body Positivity Movement is self-love, this does not mean people have to go it alone. As future physicians, we can partner with our patients and aim to help them strike a balance between their emotional and physical care. To me, this means helping our patients foster emotional self-love while also being conscious of physical health. While monitoring sensitive aspects of our patient’s physical health such as weight, infectious disease, and heritable conditions may be challenging, perhaps in part because they may draw on our own personal insecurities, we can discuss these topics using sensitive, collaborative approaches that are respectful of the patient’s emotional well-being. Ultimately, our goal should be to meet our patients where they’re at in terms of care and be a supportive force to propel them forward.

References:

The Body Positive: http://www.thebodypositive.org/about

Brief History: The Fat-Acceptance Movement: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1913858,00.html

The Curvy Con: http://www.thecurvycon.com/about

Overweight and Obesity: Signs, Symptoms, and Complications: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/obe/signs

Photo Credit: Crystal Coleman

Categories
Clinical Emotion Public Health

The Day I Took off my White Coat

The man in scrubs stands in the middle of the room. He has a blood-filled syringe in one hand and hand-written lab notes on the back of an envelope in another. He scans the room, looking for someone or something. I follow his gaze. A young man is curled up in a ball on the floor, rocking himself back and forth while groaning in pain (gangrenous wound on leg). A man is throwing all his weight on his wife and yelling in pain (renal colic). A woman is holding a piece of red, soaked gauze tightly on the hand of her screaming 7-year-old son (amputated finger). An older woman in a wheelchair is drooling from one side of her mouth and has a drooping shoulder (stroke). A young man, handcuffed to a police officer, has circular marks around his neck and blood dripping from his mouth (suicide attempt with hanging and ingesting barbed wire). A young woman sits limply in a wheelchair, eyes rolled back, and blood on her clothes between her legs (severe anemia – abortion days prior). In this room no bigger than my mother’s walk-in closet, the suffering is palpable and audible, but the man in scrubs does not find what he is looking for, and begins to walk out. Before he reaches the door, an unconscious man is carried in to the room (antifreeze ingestion). Without missing a step, he reaches over and gives the man a rough sternal rub to wake him up, to no avail. He exits the room.

The man in scrubs is the sole medical resident in charge of the stabilization and triage of incoming patients at this Emergency Department situated in a Low and Middle Income country. As a visiting medical student, I am wearing a white coat, and although I should fit in, my general ignorance about the majority of relevant things makes me feel like an imposter. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be wearing this white coat.

‘You! You can help me!’ exclaims a woman in a wheelchair as she reaches towards me. Her face is covered, but somehow I know that she is in pain. Reluctantly, and with as much grace as a fish on land, I walk towards her. I walk towards her knowing that the only care I can provide is a hug, a tear, or a smile; the only prescription I can write is a kind word, and the only order I can put in is a prayer to the heavens.

I came to medical school to gain the skills that I need to better care for my neighbors, to share moments of humanity, of suffering and healing with my neighbors, to be meaningfully curious – to ask and answer questions that benefit my neighbors and our community, and to use medicine as a platform to implement meaningful social change. The irony is, I see none of that now; all I can do is stand defeated as I watch my neighbors suffer. I watch because I don’t have the money to cover the 15 pounds admission fee for every patient that is turned away at the door of the ED. I watch because I don’t know whether that comatose child who was just intubated is in trouble because his stomach is inflating instead of his lungs. I watch because I don’t know if that medical student just injured that woman’s radial nerve while trying to get an arterial blood sample.

With tears in my eyes, I fumble out of my white coat and head for the exit. I’m done watching, I tell myself. I’m done watching and I’m ready to learn. I’m ready to learn how to care for the suffering. I’m ready to be a part of the change I want to see in the world. As the door of the ED closed behind me, I managed to catch a final peek of the chaotic scene, as if to tell myself, ‘I will return when I’m ready.’

Looking back, I wish I had kept my white coat on, even if just to care with a tear, heal with a kind word, and pray for the well-being of my neighbors.

Photo Credit: Alex Proimos

Categories
Emotion Empathy General Humanistic Psychology Narrative Public Health

Guter Mann

This city is so peaceful. As the bikes whiz by, I notice the absence of the cacophony and polluting fumes of traffic. I’m walking down the sidewalk in brown leather shoes and a tucked-in dress shirt while eating bougie gelato. I love gelato. I look up and notice the blue sky. It’s a deep blue and the clouds have distinct borders. I’m in Salzburg, Austria for a conference and I’m loving this city. Just as I marvel at the clean streets and begrudge the abundance of luxury vehicles, I turn the corner and see my sister on the floor asking for money. I immediately cross the street and reach in my pocket to hand her the change I received at the gelato stand. My sister is donning the flag of Islam on her head and I greet her with the anthem of Islam, a greeting of peace. She smiles and says, “Allah yijzeek al-khayr” – God reward you with the good. As I walk away, I smile at the beauty and seamlessness of our interaction.

I continue walking back to the conference hall. I review my rehearsed words as I finish my gelato. My presentation is on the data I generated regarding the controversial use of bisphosphonate anti-resorptives in the setting of chronic kidney disease mineral bone disorder. The nephrologists in the crowd won’t be too thrilled. In my head, I am considering all the different questions I could be asked, when I see another of my friends on the corner of an intersection. As I approach him, he brings his hands together and bows his head. When he raises his head again, I smile at him. I don’t have any more change so I reach into my pocket and hand him 5 euros. He has a cup in front of him, but I decide to hand him the money. I think this might make the money more of a gift than a charity. I can see hurt in his eyes as he tries to find a way to thank me. Reaching out I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze, pointing up with my other hand, trying to tell him that I will pray for him. While my hand is on his shoulder, he turns his neck and kisses my hand. I say, “No, no!” and withdraw my hand. I feel ashamed. I know I should be the one kissing his hand for accepting my miserly gift of 5 euros while knowing full-well that I have another 10 laying comfortably in my pocket. Ten euros that I will, over the next couple hours, undoubtedly spend on a sacherwurfel from the bakery next to my fancy hotel and then on another helping of overpriced gelato.

Lost in my thoughts of embarrassment, I begin to walk away, and as I do, he yells in German, “Guter mann!” – good man. Halfway across the street, I think to myself, I may not be a good man, but I have the opportunity to try, and so I turn back around.

Ten euros was all the money that I had left on me. But 10 euros was all it cost to earn the respect and love of a man I had only met minutes ago. Excitedly, the man begins to talk to me in German. His name is Damien. (We spend a good 5 minutes on my name. I would say, ‘Mo-ham-mad’, and he would then repeat after me, ‘No-han-nam’). Damien is a father of 3 kids. He was doing well for his family until his wife lost her vision. He said, “Now my heart is still good, but children’s stomachs are empty, so my hand is outstretched.”

I notice the tears in my eyes. I had never heard German spoken before, and I shouldn’t know what he’s saying to me, but I understood every word. Home is where the heart is, and this man is my neighbor. As I leave Damien for the second time, I point up again and then turn my palms up to the Heavens in prayer. He says, “Allah.” And I repeat, “Allah.”

On my second day in Salzburg, I take the long way to the conference center, hoping to run into my friend Damien. I turn the corner and there he is, sitting at the end of the block. My stride lengthens and my steps quicken. As I approach him, I see him leaning left and right, squinting his eyes; he’s trying to see if it’s me. He leaves his corner and yells, “Nohannam!!” while jogging towards me and we embrace each other as brothers and lifelong friends. And as my neighbor and friend embraces me, I realize I may not be a good man, but Damien is willing to show me how to become one.

Photo Credit: Sam Rodgers

Categories
Emotion Empathy General Humanistic Psychology Narrative Patient-Centered Care Psychology Reflection

Immigrant’s Suitcase: Ordinary people with the will to do extraordinary things

A mother separated from her missing husband flees a war-torn country, her homeland, to provide a brighter future for her children. She’s a dentist by training and practiced dentistry back home; but here, here she’s cleaning homes for a living. Why? When she left her home with her four children by her side, headed to a safer place, to America, what was in her suitcase? Alongside the picture of her missing husband and the few possessions that remained after the destruction of her home, in her suitcase, she has hopes and dreams, fears and doubts. She looks to her children for strength, but she’s terrified every time she looks them in their eyes. She is not optimistic, but she is hopeful; she looks the odds straight in the face and proceeds anyway. Because hope is not logical, it is powerful.

She’s cleaning the home of a happy family; the father is an engineer and the mother is a doctor and the children play piano. Their life, their hopes, goals and dreams are dependent on the stability of their country, but they cannot see it. The same hands that used to place crowns to relieve the pain of the suffering are now scrubbing the floor of another woman’s bathroom. But hope is powerful, and she lives through the dreams of her children. Two of her daughters want to be doctors. Her third daughter wants to be an artist. Her son is eight and he loves math. In her suitcase, she brought with her the dream of a better education for her children. “In Syria, we ate grass. In Egypt, we didn’t have food. In Indiana, I love school.” These are the words of her eight-year-old son.

A man runs to catch the bus. He can’t miss the interview; he really needs this job. It is his third interview in as many days. His last job got him enough money to get his family off the streets for a couple weeks. But motels are more expensive than he ever imagined. He’s homeless. His family is homeless. This wasn’t a possibility he considered when he graduated with his MBA. He had a great job, but the hurricane took everything away. And he hasn’t been able to get back on his feet. He catches the bus and pays the $1.75 in quarters. He checks the email that he printed; the interview is in room 4015. He runs up the stairs; he really hates being late. As he enters his interviewer’s room, a bead of sweat runs down his forehead. What’s in that bead of sweat? Desperation and nervousness, humiliation and self-pity, purpose and resilience.

His interviewer gives him the job offer. He smiles and shakes his head. A tear runs down his face. He can’t take the job; he can’t manage the branch that makes most of its revenue through alcohol sales. Another day and another interview, but his family remains homeless. He needs the job, but rejecting the offer was an easy decision. He believes that although alcohol may have small benefits to people and society, the harm it causes is much larger than its benefits, and wants to play no part in its distribution; he will not be a co-creator in the intoxication of his neighbor’s mind.

A young woman sinks into herself on the examination table. Her husband is holding, squeezing her hand. The doctor is still talking. He looks very sympathetic. The young woman just learned that she has a cancer growing inside of her lungs, an aggressive cancer. The doctor thinks ‘we can fight it.’ The young woman’s mind is overwhelmed into quietness. All she can think about is her daughter’s play after school that she doesn’t want to miss, even for this. The doctor brings her back, ‘Do you feel comfortable about our next step? I think that’s the best place for us to start.’ The young woman shrugs. What is in that shrug? Fear and uncertainty, peace and tranquility, ambivalence, a need for normalcy, a desire for time to make meaning.

The young woman is herself a physician, trained and licensed as a radiologist. She knows enough about cancer and the late stage non-small cell lung cancer she has been diagnosed with to know that the longevity of her future has been called into question. And yet this is not the topic of discussion with the doctor. Instead, he discusses treatment options, which is fancy talk for a long list of big words in different orders and combinations. When asked about the next step, she shrugged. She shrugged because there didn’t seem to be room for her in that room. (Insert young woman with terminal cancer here). Although it is more comfortable for the doctor to rattle off treatment options, the patient wants to take time to acknowledge the inexorability of our life cycle. To the doctor, it was the end of a beginning, and they were, together, supposed to begin a new chapter of strength and resilience. While he rattled off treatment options, she just wanted to catch her daughter’s play after school, and she was running late.

In the words of HL Menken, ‘For every human problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.’  Without taking a moment to explore what’s inside the immigrant’s suitcase, the homeless man’s bead of sweat, the sick young woman’s shrug, we stand a sorry chance to witness, help, and learn from ordinary people with the will to do extraordinary things. This is the power of narratives; the power of listening. I call myself to look inside the suitcase, to investigate the bead of sweat, and to ask about the shrug; I call myself to listen.

I find myself in an imperfect world, full of injustice and oppression. I find myself an imperfect man perfectly given the ability to alleviate suffering, on a personal level with a smile or a hug, and on a larger scale by fighting injustice and refusing to stand idly in the face of oppression. Poverty belongs in a history museum. And hunger…we have enough food in the world for every member of the human family to eat a balanced 3000 calorie meal. When we eliminate poverty and hunger, there will be many other injustices for us to face. I want to make facing these injustices my mission. My mission is to be ‘human’ as best I can; to work to establish justice in any capacity that I can, from a generously given smile to an honest political campaign.

Photo Credit: Robot Brainz

Categories
General Reflection

Culture and Medicine

Culture binds together the building blocks of our identity. It defines the paths we choose to walk, the people we seek to befriend, and the meaning we place upon our lives.

It is present at every job interview, every birthday, every heartbreak and every wedding. It is the voice in our ear that cautions us when we go against our values, the shoulder that nudges us with soft hands towards tradition. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the fact remains that something so vital to our being also forms the roots of nourishment and support during the most trying times of our lives: ill health.

Think of the word “culture”, and many definitions come to mind. For some, it is a cage; bars that stow rigid beliefs and deep lines of division in the sands. For others, it is a sweet reminder of their childhood, their distant family. A link to their ancestors perhaps, or a nod to the countless sacrifices that so many generations past have made.

Clearly, culture is not a gleaming jewel in itself. There are walls that culture can build – stereotypes, divisions, segregation and war to name but a few. And we must be aware, in this ever-increasingly globalized world, that cultures are not typically singular. Families immigrate and pick up traditions and values as they plant their new lives upon fertile soil. Our beliefs about ourselves and those around us continue to change and transform as we step outside of our boroughs and breathe in new air. It is this mixing of values and beliefs that can help form ties with traditions long lost, offering diversity and different ways of looking at life. For example, Bhui (2011) found that there was a high risk of suicide in South Asian women, but this risk was attenuated when these women were born in the UK. What is it about growing up in the UK that has an impact upon such a profound decision? Or indeed, what is it about growing up in South Asia that directs people down the path of self-destruction? If culture can have an impact on such a deep level, perhaps it is something worth examining.

Are we looking after a sick body or a sick society?

Culture teaches us how to speak, how to act, how to think and how to breathe. The range of emotion we express to our friends, our family and to the public at large is limited by the boundaries of by our cultural habitats. Some cultures place emphasis on dignity and self-reservation – of being stoic in times of difficulty. Others may open arms wide, taking in grief and self-loathing, pity and joy, stirring these feelings into a melting pot of human life, rich in colour. The more we learn about our culture, the more we learn about ourselves – the way we think, what we think, why we think the things we think. Not only is this important for us as individuals, allowing us to grow and change, but it is also important for us as clinicians, when we are charged with the task of rebuilding and restoring these things when they inevitably fall apart.

We, as healthcare professionals may continue to learn from our textbooks about drugs and their effects, but in a world transformed by increased living, both quantitatively and qualitatively, perhaps it is no longer drugs that matter to our patients, but how we choose to approach our decaying bodies.

It is culture that shapes the way we face our woes and despairs. During the moments of agony, of aches and pains, it is culture that provides the lens through which we view ourselves. Do we remain stoical, chuckling heartily at the jokes juggled around by the nursing staff, or do we sit down with our head in our hands, so consumed by our grief that our need to wear a mask is but a luxury of a world far away. In the end, it is up to the doctor, the nurse, the healthcare professional to explore and understand how it is the patient views themselves, their body and the world around them. We can do this gently, by probing into the innermost recesses of our patients’ lives – encouraging a conversation, engaging in questions that touch at the heart of the person:

What do you do to stay healthy?

What does illness mean to you?

Who are your social supports?

How do you view doctors and medications?

We must remember that medicine is not a dogma upon which we pontificate. People may have differing beliefs about their illness, and in the end, these may be the only things left to tie their hopes to. For example, some people in India may use karma to explain illness, underlying their deeply religious and spiritual background (Fernando 2012). In the Western nations, where society has gradually built its walls between thyself and thy neighbours, people may return to their GP again and again with vague complaints, when the underlying problem may be psychosocial. This idea is illustrated beautifully in the following blog post: https://abetternhs.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/loneliness/

Although bodies have signs and symptoms, only people become sick.

Nichter 2010 described five expressions of idioms of distress:

  • Medicine-taking behaviour: requests for prescriptions, self-medication
  • Biomedical disease nomenclature: associating distress with disease
  • Diagnostic tests: expressing distress to others by taking tests
  • Healthcare-seeking: searching for a practitioner and a diagnosis
  • Changes in consumption patterns: e.g. increased smoking – distress communicated nonverbally

As we can see, people seek help for a variety of reasons. It may not be as simple as a quest for a prescription, for a scan or a blood test. By focusing only upon these rigid scientific measurements, you lose what it means to be a patient – to suffer. This is a loss not only for the patient, but for the clinician and for the healthcare system. When the physician becomes a robot, with an ever-increasing checklist to tick through, or list of procedures to complete, the vital relationship between doctor and patient is lost. This is the relationship upon which lies the patient’s hopes, fears, trust, and beliefs. When this relationship begins to wither, with it goes compliance and faith in the healthcare system – the willingness to step in front of a clinician and say ‘I need help.’

Of course, taking into account such a colossal term as ‘culture’ and applying it to each and every patient, one after another, day in day out, is not an easy task. Try as we may, the largest part of our curriculum is based on the medications we administer, the scans we perform, the blood tests we order. Our training in the scientific and technical fields gives us our title and our role. It takes a lot of courage, determination and compassion to go beyond these components of the therapeutic relationship, and explore our patients as whole persons with equal parts body, mind, and spirit. To help expand upon this, Blumhagen (1962) cited in Parry (1984) compiled some sample questions:

What do you think has caused your problem?

Why do you think it started when it did?

How severe do you think your illness is?

What do you fear most about your illness?

What are the chief problems your illness has caused for you?

What are the most important results you hope to get from treatment?

The Culture of Healthcare

I have spoken much about the cultures in which our patients present themselves. However, we too are human beings, which means we too are subject to cultural conditioning. We are part of the culture of healthcare, which has biases all its own. In a world that has become and continues to become transformed by multiculturalism, it can be easy for doctors to feel alienated from patients. After all, we cannot hold the same beliefs as every single one of our patients. It is not similarity of beliefs that is required, but an understanding and an appreciation. What patients want isn’t a parrot to recite back their own ideals, but a person who is able to accept the world in which they reside, respecting the decisions they make with an appreciation of the diversity of human life. And perhaps, through this understanding, a truly patient-centered approach can be adopted, in which it is the patient’s belief that takes precedent, and not those written down in a textbook by a retired professor. To reach this level, there is but one obstacle: ourselves. We need to become aware of our own biases –what makes us tick, what prejudices we hold, what makes us squirm, what opens our heart and makes it beat. Once we begin to learn more about ourselves, we can then take the step to learn more about our patients and the lives they lead.

If we do not take these steps to gain a greater understanding of our own being, then the outcome can only be confusion, unease and distress. One example of this is the release of the National Mental Health Program in 2002 by the Indian government, which placed emphasis on psychotropic medication. Jain and Jadhav (2009) argued that this focus on medication silenced the voices of the community. They noticed that social workers in rural villages took histories of patients, decontextualizing the symptoms into a list from which the doctors could make a diagnosis. The symptoms of the patients were seen through a biomedical lens, and clinical dialogues were structured around compliance. The medication eventually served as a boundary, with psychologists and social workers seen as assistant doctors– the power lying in the hands of the prescribers. The clinicians were alienated from the daily lives of their patients, ignoring the idioms used by their patients to describe their suffering.

What do we do?

Although physicians may memorize lists of cultural attributes, we must not forget the individuality of each patient. Families can adopt new values that may not always be tied to their heritage. Alas, culture is an ever-sticky concept – yet if it were anything else it would not be human.

So what can we do? We can acknowledge the person sitting in front of us in their entirety. We can become aware of any judgments that may cross our mind, and fix our eye on the person with open curiosity. We can learn from our patients, and allow them to teach us how we can best help them. They are the experts in the room.

 

References

Bhui, K. 2002. Explanatory models for mental distress: implications for clinical practice and research. The British Journal of Psychiatry. 181:6-7

Bhui, K. 2011. Cultural psychiatry and epidemiology: Researching the means, methods and meanings. Transcultural Psychiatry. 48:90-103

Campbell, C., Burgess, R. 2012. The role of communities in advancing the goals of the Movement for Global Mental Health. Transcultural Psychiatry. 49: 379-395

Chau, R.C.M., Yu, S.W.K., Tran, C.T.L. 2010. The diversity based approach to culturally sensitive practices. International Social Work. 54:21-33

Fernando, G.A. 2012. The roads less traveled: Mapping some pathways on the global mental health research roadmap. Transcultural Psychiatry. 49:396-417

Ganzer, C., Ornstein, E.D. 2002. A sea of trouble: A relational approach to the culturally sensitive treatment of a severly disturbed client. Clinical Social Work Journal. 30:127-144

Jain, S., Jadhav, S. 2009. Pills that swallow policy: clinical ethnography of a community mental health program in Northern India. Transcultural Psychiatry.46:60-85

Kleinman, A., Benson, P. 2006. Anthropology in the Clinic: The Problem of Cultural Competency and How to Fix It. PLOS Medicine. 3:e294

Lee, E. A working model of cross-cultural clinical practice (CCCP). Clinical Social Work Journal. 40:23-36

Nichter, M. 2010. Idioms of Distress Revisited. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry.34:401-416

Parry, K. 1984. Concepts from Medical Anthropology for Clinicians. Physical Therapy. 64:929-933

Swartz, L. 2012. An unruly coming of age: The benefits of discomfort for global mental health. Transcultural Psychiatry. 49:531-538

 

Featured image:
The palace of culture – Warsaw, Poland – Travel photography by Giuseppe Milo

Categories
Lifestyle Public Health Reflection

Can social justice replace medicine?

‘Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale.’
– Marmot (2)

Despite the leaps and bounds that science has made over the past century, with all its shiny new techno-gadgets and ever-advancing drugs, the primary reason for our good health today lies in something much less sexy: vaccinations, clean water and sanitation- changes that we take for granted.

We live in a world that is changing every second. Bigger cars, faster phones, all the information at our beck and call: from the education that is offered to our kids, to the healthcare that is offered to our decaying bodies.

The hospital of today is a far cry from the one half a century ago. The minute you walk into a hospital your senses go haywire. You have stepped into the world of the future. The full scale of our technological advancement greets you within these four walls. The bizarre beeping overwhelms your ear canals, screaming into your brain as the alarms screech constantly in the background. The reams of wires trail along the floor of the wards, wrapping themselves around their patients like Christmas presents, offering nourishment to bodies overwhelmed with disease. We are living in the world of machines, and it is upon them that we place our hopes of immortality.

Everyone knows of the success story of Science. We are bombarded by the media, informing us of the next new cancer drug, the gene unlocked that will solve all our problems. What we forget is that we are not merely organisms residing within a vacuum. Nor are we machines ourselves, whose very pores can be zapped with electrodes, transforming our very identity. We are human beings living and breathing on this planet Earth. We digest the world around us. We are not merely scientists of the world within ourselves, of the DNA that twirls inside our cells. We are also manufacturers of the world around us; of the houses we live in, the food we eat and the lives we live. Perhaps the answer to a better, healthier life lies here instead.

But, is this the role of the doctor? Shouldn’t we leave this task to the politicians, to those who have the power to make these important decisions? Isn’t the duty of the doctor ultimately towards her patient, towards that individual who is sitting opposite, rather than to humanity as a whole? I believe Virchow, the German Doctor, described it best when he said:

‘Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.’ (1)

Of course there are diseases that can only be fixed by looking inside our own bodies – diseases that come from within, that cannot be changed by any amount of control over one’s environment; Huntington’s Disease is one example.

But if you take a quick glance at the causes of mortality in both the USA and the UK, you will find that the majority of these diseases are significantly related to one’s lifestyle. The top leading cause of death in both the UK (3) and USA (4) is Heart Disease, which has very strong links with lifestyle, including smoking (5), a high-fat diet (6) and poor exercise (7).

In the past, when tuberculosis and polio wreaked havoc upon the population, the role of the doctor was to prescribe medication; to act as the priest who offered the gift of life through his knowledge and wisdom. Yet now, this power lies upon the patient. Our lives are no longer cut short by the plague, but by the pathways we choose to make while we are still alive.

The role of the doctor continues to change along with society. The doctor is the servant of the public. As our ailments in life continue to revolve around these pathways that we choose to take, so must the doctor focus her gaze away from the leaves of her prescription pad and begin to question the foundations of such paths; the reasons behind these choices, the thoughts and actions that lead a person towards their own destruction.

It is not enough to simply inform someone by saying ‘you need to do more exercise.’ Anyone who has made a New Year’s Resolution to do so will understand this. Even in the UK, a country where healthcare is free, one’s health is still dependent upon how much one earns. The richer you are, the longer you will live (8). How is it that in this day and age, this is still the case? Healthcare is a right. And as doctors, it is our duty to ensure this edict is followed. The politician may sit upon his throne and hand down his judgments, but it is the healthcare professional who is in contact day in and day out with the most vulnerable and marginalized.

Indeed, there are some excellent examples of attempts to try and balance this injustice within our society; free school meals in the UK which lead to improved nutrition in children (9) and the ban on public smoking to try and reduce passive smoking (10) are just two examples. These changes in legislation lead to the question: how much control should our government have over our own decisions towards our health? If someone wishes to smoke and drink all their life, then that is their right. Autonomy is one of the principles the doctor must follow; today’s healthcare system revolves around the patient and her choices. No longer does the doctor hold authority over the patient’s body. Yet this does not mean we cannot improve the world around us; we are still capable of building a healthier society, a society in which we will not only live longer, but be happier in as well. Free education and housing are two examples of societal changes that do not necessarily impose upon our personal rights, yet can lead to healthier childhoods and happier families.

Let’s say you are a single working mother – you are only just reaching your rent each month. You can only work part-time because you need to pick up your son from nursery every afternoon. You have no family who can look after him. This leaves little money for food, so you mainly feed your son. His diet is very poor, not only because of the little you can afford, but you yourself have never learned how to cook. Your own childhood consisted of fast food and the occasional apple or banana handed to you by a father who you rarely saw. You live in a very deprived neighbourhood. You cannot afford heating, and your son is constantly sniffling and coughing, hiding under his hole-infested jumper that you managed to grab from a local charity shop. You are isolated – your husband has left you, you have no one to talk to and your neighbours scare you. When you’re not working, you stay at home for your own safety, and ultimately for your son’s. You try to remain happy for your son. You want the best for him. But you are scared. You are scared for the future, you are scared about your next paycheck, you are scared about being burgled, being mugged, having your son taken away from you. You are scared about becoming a failure, of disappointing your son. You start drinking a glass of whiskey each evening to help you calm these anxieties. You gradually spend more and more money on alcohol, an attempt to grasp control of these spiraling criticisms that constantly call into question your ability to be a mother. But this does not always help. As the days turn to weeks, your thoughts begin to gain a voice of their own, almost screaming through your ears; you are a bad mother. A failure. Maybe you’d be better off somewhere else. Your son would have a better life without you. He wouldn’t have such an awful mother.
You eye the packet of paracetamol lying on the table. What would happen if you weren’t here? Wouldn’t your son lead a happier life? He would no longer have this dark mark tainting his existence. He might even be happy… What do you do?

In various points throughout this story, one could take out their pen and draw a mark where someone could have intervened. Not necessarily to offer medication or money, but things such as social support; someone to help look after the son in the afternoons, advice on how to apply for jobs, or housing in a more residential area. A helpful hand to hold on to during the darkest periods, a pat on the back, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen. How different would this story be if these simple interventions had been available?

It is very easy for us, the next generation, to caress our mobile phones and laptops that fit in both hands. It is easy to see the world as decaying pieces of rubble to improve, gadgets to insert, wires to wrap around and transform. No doubt this way of thinking has changed our healthcare; it has saved many lives. But we must never forget that humanity is not a machine itself. It cannot be controlled by our remote controls and our drugs; we must look further afield in order to truly appreciate the complexity of the human being. When we look at the human body, at a life that has been lived hard and is ending early, we see not genes that have played havoc, but decades of depression, underlying abuse, a cigarette to cope, a bottle of beer to forget. Addressing these problems is a task that requires us to go beyond our scientific skills. It requires us to understand the emotional lives of our patients.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” 
– Anne Frank

References

  1. (with acknowledgements to Siân Anis), J. R. A. (2006). Virchow misquoted, part‐quoted, and the real McCoy. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 60(8), 671.
  2. World Health Organisation. 2008. Inequities are killing people on grand scale, reports WHO’s Commission [Online[. Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr29/en/
  3. Office for National Statistics. 2013. What are the top causes of death by age and gender? [Online]. Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/mortality-statistics–deaths-registered-in-england-and-wales–series-dr-/2012/sty-causes-of-death.html [Accessed: 13th October 2015]
  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2015. Leading Causes of Death [Online]. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [Accessed: 13th October 2015]
  5. British Heart Foundation. Smoking [Online]. Available at: https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/risk-factors/smoking [Accessed: 13th October 2015]
  6. World Heart Federation. Diet [Online]. Available at: http://www.world-heart-federation.org/cardiovascular-health/cardiovascular-disease-risk-factors/diet/ [Accessed: 13th October 2015]
  7. Myers, J. 2003. Exercise and Cardiovascular Health. 107:e2-e5
  8. Royal College of Nursing. 2012. Health Inequalities and the Social Determinants of Health. London: Royal College of Nursing
  9. BBC News. 2013. All infants in England to get free school lunches [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24132416 [Accessed: 13th October 2015]
  10. Bauld, L. 2011. The Impact of Smokefree Legislation in England: Evidence Review. England: Department of Health

Featured image:
Human Genome by Richard Ricciardi

 

Categories
General Lifestyle Opinion

I Will Not Try To Fix You

Disability—The Oxford dictionary defines disability as “a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities.”

Although some disabled people have medical ailments, the two conditions are not synonymous. While a disabled person might require medical attention, disability is defined by social barriers, not pathophysiology.

It is an umbrella term and includes impairments and activity limitations. Impairment is a problem in the body’s structure or function; activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action.

Disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers.

Those with disabilities have capacities for motor, sensory, and cognitive tasks that differ from the “norm.” Each individual has different qualities and capabilities, but defining this “norm” is practically impossible. Society can create barriers that do not allow an individual to develop to his or her full potential. Likewise, society can remove disabling barriers. A wheelchair user cannot get into a building with steps at the entrance, but a ramp or a lift completely removes that particular barrier. Seated before a ramp, is an individual in a wheelchair disabled?

An individual with Down Syndrome can hold meaningful employment if provided with appropriate support. Down Syndrome itself is not a disability; it is a medical condition. An individual will experience specific barriers that emerge because of the relationship between impairments and societal barriers. The presence or absence of medical conditions can cause one individual to vary from another in terms of motor, sensory, and cognitive function, but an individual is only disabled when appropriate accommodations are not made.

As a societal construct, disability fluctuates in different settings. In a completely adapted home, or with adequate assistance, an individual might have no disability at all; while, in an environment without assistance, this person might become disabled.

Physicians treat medical conditions and, as such, they tend to focus on the “limitations” and “abnormalities” associated with disabled people’s conditions; heart disease, for example, in those with Down syndrome. Disabilities, however, are not medical conditions in and of themselves. The role of a physician is to assess the health of a disabled person, provide treatment for associated symptoms, and anticipate as well as prevent future complications. This can greatly improve a disabled person’s quality of life, and, in some cases, even prolong life. Fixing the disability is not in the doctor’s job description.

How do you, as a medical student, perceive disabled people? Do you feel as if medicine failed them by not being able to “cure” them?

Disability is not tragic; it is tragic that society doesn’t appreciate the abilities of disabled individuals.

Disabled people often report being patronized by medical staff, being described as having “a fate worse than death”, or carrying an “unhealthy gene”, as well as “suffering” from a condition. Consider the power of language. Great advances have been made in both medicine and technology, and even more in the public’s perception and understanding of disability.

Disabled people have more freedom, independence, and equality than they did previously, but there is further work to be done. Rather than making a distinction between disabled or not, physicians should be leaders in embracing diversity and independent living for all of their patients, including disabled people.

Dr. Chris Smith – a disabled associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College, USA – recently spoke about perceptions towards disabled people, stating that “the ultimate test of living in community is found in our willingness to change our minds about one another.”

People with disabilities have the same health needs as non-disabled people – for immunizations, cancer screening etc. They may experience a narrower margin of health, due to both poverty and social exclusion, and also because they may be vulnerable to secondary conditions. Evidence suggests that disabled people face barriers in accessing the health and rehabilitation services they need in many settings.

As future physicians, it is important to view disabled patients equally to all others, whilst acknowledging the barriers they face. When approaching your disabled patients, do not define them by their impairment, do not pity them, do not try to “fix” them; rather, appreciate their abilities, recognize them for their values and behaviors, support them to achieve their aspirations, and, most importantly, listen to them.

Featured image:
disability by Abhijit Bhaduri