Our health care system here in the U.S. is often compared and contrasted with the Canadian system that provides universal coverage. Each system has its virtues and its challenges. Canadian health blogger Wendy Margolese from Toronto, Ontario, Canada recently wrote an interesting piece on Simcoe.com entitled, “Canadian Medicare: More Care in our Health Care System”.
How much airtime does an issue need before that sets fire to our commitment for change? The award-winning documentary movie Escape Fire: The Fight To Rescue American Healthcare, until recently, has received relatively small attention. Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, said, “The physical health of our nation and the cost of healthcare, impact every current
“Ultimately, if we want to fix American medicine we will need skeptical and smart patients to dominate,” advises Dr. Oz, according to an article¹ in The New Yorker. Today, more and more, wise health consumers think for themselves. They ask questions, gather information, consider different choices, and make wise and well-informed decisions when it comes to
“Dr. Viggiano, noting that the act of taking a pill is often just an external trigger to what she describes as an internal or ‘central’ healing response, wonders what this tells us about our thoughts in terms of their effect on health and healing.” This observation comes from Dr. Darlene Viggiano at the Saybrook School
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“There’s a different way of doing things that’s possible” according to the trailer for a thought-provoking movie by Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke entitled “ESCAPE FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare” that opens Friday, October 5. Our current system resists needed changes, perhaps fearing change, but the new ideas and alternative treatments, including spiritual ones, that will help rescue American healthcare can be considered and utilized without fear.
According to the movie’s website, “ESCAPE FIRE examines the powerful forces maintaining the status quo, a medical industry designed for quick fixes rather than prevention, for profit-driven care rather than patient-driven care.”
The inspiration for the title of the movie comes from an incident in Mann Gulch, Montana where a forest fire trapped a group of firefighters. Their foreman, Wag Dodge, intentionally lit a fire in front of him and then stepped into the newly burnt area. The fire went around that area since it was already burned. His crew couldn’t accept his unusual approach and went on ahead and, tragically, most of them were killed. Wag Dodge survived.
It seems that one of the big challenges lies in overcoming the fear of something new, something a little different than what we’re used to.
Albert Einstein reassures us with his perspective: “Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting points and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.”¹
It’s like a reverse marriage – sort of.
An Op-Ed piece entitled, “Medicine’s Great Divide – The View from the Alternative Side” published this month in the Virtual Mentor, the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics, describes the relationship between conventional medicine and alternative medicine like a bad marriage in reverse, starting with divorce, going through mediation, and working towards “a shy courtship”.