Broken, part 1

"Medicine used to be simple, ineffective and relatively safe; now it is complex, effective and potentially dangerous." -Cyril Chantler

This is the first part of what I am sure will be a many part saga; an epic about how broken the US health care system currently is. I say all of this with the caveat that a) I'm really not sure what would be better; b) if I did, I'm not sure I would know how to transform our current system to this new shiny, effective, and cost efficient system; and c) as imperfect as I know single payer systems to be, I support systems that acknowledge my belief that health care is a right. However, I am never really sure what to say when asked "how much health care is a right?"

Two things happened last week that made me think about how broken our system is. The first was a public health class on health care management. We spent 5 days sitting around a room, shooting for the moon with our ideas about what health care should offer. We then discussed authentic leaders, and how to use leadership to make these things happen. In 20 years it will not surprise me to see these classmates transforming the way health care is delivered; and with the ideas that were shared, I pray that these minds are able to make an impact much sooner than 2030.

Second, I received two e-mails. The first from a friend worrying that her birth control pills were fallible. This friend should have been educated about all the possible signs and symptoms that may present when put on the pill. The lack of premptive education caused needles worry, undue anxiety, and possible misstrust in the system. The fact that she came to me (a know-nothing medical student) instead of her clinician speaks to the inaccessibility of educational services. Second, another friend, with a history of asthma ended up with multiple time-consuming and stress-inducing specialists appointments because of follow-charts. She saw her clinician presenting with shortness of breath and heart palpitations which automatically sent up the red-flag for cardiac trouble. While this red-flag supports the effectivness of the system (along with the fear of malpractice litigation), no one took a time out to actually think about the situation. The fact that she's young, healthy, had a normal EKG in the office, and that her signs and symptoms were consistent with her asthma regiment. If this thought process had been followed, she would have been saved excess time, money, use of precious resources, risk of added interventions, and excess time before the necessary change in asthma medicine.

I may be a naive medical student. Maybe you don't agree that these examples illuminate some of the many issues with our medical system. But, even still, can you really say that our system isn't problematic? And should we settle for something so broken?