Homework #26: Looking Back and Forward in Unit

The American health care system insures people, but does not necessarily provide the assistance promised. (Sicko)

Doctors sometimes continue care in order to make the family feel better and have it appear as if they tried, even if the life can no longer be saved. (Near Death)

While most doctors tend to separate themselves from the patient, it can be emotionally beneficial to know the patient because it gives you more motivation to cure them. (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

In the medical field it is important to make an effort, because trying and failing is always better than not trying at all. (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

An age makes no distinction of what a person can handle; when it comes to illness and dying we must choose whom we believe has the emotional strength to support those suffering. (Beth Bernett)

            It is hard to decide which source was most effective, as they each displayed illness and dying in different ways. I believe my favorite was the guest speaker, Beth. While movies are interesting and display images along with their words, having a real human being in the room made the information much more real. Movies can exaggerate and twist the facts, but feeling the energy of a person and understanding their emotional process is much more beneficial. Her story seemed more relatable and personal than those on the television. It was a two sided conversation, one in which questions were welcomed. In a film that opportunity is not there, instead one is left with questions and can easily be deceived.

            Reading a book was also a good source of illness and dying imagery. The in depth details help create one’s own personal image of the situation. At times Mountains Beyond Mountains was a bit boring and repetitive, but it painted a clear picture of illness and dying. All the information packed into the book would have been too much for a movie. By reading the book, the reader spends more time with Paul Farmer than somebody watching a movie would, allowing the reader to analyze his tactics. One begins to understand why Farmer chooses to work with his patients in such a unique way. A book offers a focused subject that was definitely helpful for this unit.

            I think it would be really interesting to learn about socialized medicine. Michael Moore displays it as this great thing that the United States should adopt, but of course there must be some reason why we have not. In order to find out more about this, we should look at countries that do have socialized health care and investigate how it works – who it does and doesn’t benefit. Exploring this is an exploration of our alternatives. If we are to live in the United States with our current health care, we should understand why we have chosen to continue living so, besides its profit motives. It might also be interesting to look at nursing homes, where a lot of the ill and dying live together in confinement. We could visit one of them or find articles that discuss the workings of nursing homes. So far everything has been focused on hospitals and doctors, but I believe it is also important to look at how we live once we are elderly or already diagnosed.