Friday, December 09, 2005
final exam...final thoughts...
My final exam/paper/essay for this class is HERE in pdf format.
My final thoughts on this class are as follows; the subject matter is not comfortable. It is, in fact, quite uncomfortable. Most people will not want to hear what is taught in this class, however most people need to hear what is taught.
We don't want to know that the health care system in the United States is fundamentally flawed. We don't want to hear that at the motivational root of much of our health care system is profit. We don't want to know that there are people living right here in the United States that have less access to adequate health care than similar people in other countries. We don't like to hear these things. Why? Because we've been trained to think that if we do it here, it must be the best, it must be right, it cannot be worse than anywhere else in the world.
While it is true that we have the highest level of medical technology, and the best and most talented doctors on the entire planet here in the United States, the fact remains that we do not provide the same level of care to all people. People's ability to pay, peoples ability to find and maintain work, peoples ability to get off work and seek treatment, all work against people in many different situations have the ability to obtain and pay for adequate health care.
What is to be done about this? I don't know. I don't have the answers. Many people seek alternative treatments because of this disparity. This was one focus of this class. Alternative medicine in the United States. We even had a healer from Healing Way here in Spokane come and talk to us about the "energies" that surround our bodies. He even proved the existence of this aura by way of a few good parlor tricks.
My ultimate thought is this: people are being taken for a ride. People who need to be given proper treatment are seeking alternatives that sometimes help, and sometimes hurt. While it is often positive to seek something like prayer or other intercession for the positive placebo effect, it is unfortunate that so much Naturalpathy and other un-tested alternative practices give people false hope.
