Placebo’s for the mind

The time has come to start a new international organization that helps the senior citizens of the world.We need an alternative to the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) which has become a liberal lobby that reflects the views of its paid staff, and not its membership.

Let’s call our new organization SAS – Seniors Assisting Seniors. We’ll explain how each countries health care system works and help our members understand the maze of rules and regulations. Moreover, we’ll find the most cost effective alternatives to health care.

We’ll try and negotiate world wide discounts on travel, lodging, insurance and entertainment.

When we do lobby, it will be fair and reflect the views of our members and not the views of those have their own interests at heart.

Finally, We’ll start a student organization of SAS – Students Assisting Seniors – where students in the health professions can help our senior citizens understand the health care system.

Our membership fees will be minimal – $5.00 per year in U.S. currency with discounts for long term membership.

Has Congress vested in itself a license to steal?  It certainly appears that way.  Discussions about Health Care reform are a good example.  So are discussions about doing away with secret ballot elections to facilitate union organizing success.  Discussions about withdrawing tax breaks from hospitals are another example. Hastily implemented bankruptcies that reduce or eliminate hard earned pension benefits should be added to the list.  Raising taxes on so-called wealthy Americans makes one wonder what happened when one aspires to reach for success – should success be penalized?  Yes, Congress has given itself a license to steal and the stolen goods can be summarized in one word – incentive.

Incentive will soon be a word that disappears from the dictionary.  The death knell was sounded when a group of modern day Robin Hoods decided to chop down the incentive trees in Sherwood Forest.  The tragedy of all this, is that it need not happen.  We do need to provide health insurance to all Americans who cannot afford coverage.  And we can do this by reducing costs, purchasing drugs the way our Canadian and European neighbors do, changing our legal system to compensate the injured for their injury and not the legal profession, and asking that those who receive free care volunteer to help others to the extent that they are able to do so.

Unemployed Americans deserve to be covered by health insurance.  But why can’t they volunteer to help a disabled citizen during their period of unemployment?  In a previous posting on this blog page we have suggested ways facilitate healthcare reform and preserve the free enterprise system – see Take This Health Care System and if you’re Not Better, Call Me in the Morning. Let us not steal incentive as we rehabilitate our social welfare system.

I recently returned from a global networking conference in Chennai India. The city, which was formerly known as Madras, is located in the southern part of India and borders on the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is growing so rapidly that one can only guess as to the exact population but a reasonable guess is that the population will soon exceed 10 million.

Our visit to Chennai had been arranged by Professor Nabarun Ghose at the University of Findlay. Annually Dr. Ghose organizes an India Study Abroad program. The itinerary includes a conference with presentations by business executives, government ministers and students. Subsequent to the formal conference tours are arranged for visits to local industry; universities; hospitals; the American Consulate and a diversity of cultural sites including churches, temples and those institutions that comprise the region’s history.

This year’s attendees from the U of F included the following students and faculty:
•    Sowmya Mangalam
•    Shawn Miller
•    Prakash Parmar
•    Chandra Punathi
•    Padma Yata
•    Dr. Nabarun Ghose and his daughter
•    Dr. Scott Freehafer
•    Mrs. Penny Gerdeman
•    Dr. William Ruse

Previously I had seen India through the eyes of our students. It was a magical experience to visit this land of wonderful people and a rich historical heritage. Chennai India is a city of contrasts. At any given time one might see an Ox pulling a cart located with sacks of meal, rice or grain. Look across the street and you may see a 10 story high tech building that houses 12,000 engineers working for various companies whose business ventures span the globe. It is interesting to note that the city of Chennai graduates more engineers in a year than the entire United States.

Don’t expect to find Wal-Mart in Chennai, India. The city is replete with small shops selling everything from cans of paint, to electronics, to food and beverages. Retailing in India, with few exceptions, is truly a mom-and-pop operation.

Our purpose in visiting India was to expand the reach of the University of Findlay’s MBA programs to the world’s second most populous country. With a population of over 1.1 billion establishing educational contacts in India seems a logical step, particularly in view of the fact that this is the homeland of nearly 500 international students who attended the University of Findlay.

I hope to return to India in the near future. I shall never forget the warmth and hospitality of its people. As an example, when one of our group got lost (an American)  the people seem to sense that we were looking for another Caucasian and kept pointing and saying “that way, that way” and so it came to pass that eventually our group was united. Mental telepathy or human kindness?  I know it was the latter.

Let me introduce you to Dr. Ramnadh Nandipati – a physician from India who is completing his studies for a MBA degree with a concentration in Health Care Management from the University of Findlay. Ramnadh’s first passion is teaching. After obtaining his MBA degree he wants to obtain his PhD so he can teach.

Within the soul of this deeply committed individual is a second passion – designing web pages and blogs such as the one you are reading. During a MBA class we shared together I was the teacher. Now I have the privilege of being the student as Dr. Nandipati designs detailed instructions on how to develop a blog site and slowly teaches me the finer points of blogging. My thanks and deep appreciation.

Recently a preceptor of one of our Health Care Management students was explaining the difference between the classroom and workplace. She explained the workplace as a place of ambiguity – there is no text where you can look up answers or a professor to guide you along when you don’t have the slightest idea where to start. In other words, you’re on your own.

In the workplace if you’re given a project to complete it is expected that you have the resources to figure out where to start and how to plan for a successful conclusion. Health care professionals are an empathetic group and they’ll help new co-workers or interns to a point but they reasonably expect that the person they are helping is an expert in his or her own right. We’ve all heard stories of the seasoned nurse who a can easily outperform a new medical resident. Being the new kid on the block can be freighting.

The point of all this is simply to expect to be overwhelmed when you’re in a new position, but the learning curve must be in days, not weeks, months or years. But a word of caution when your venturing out in the workplace for the first time – it’s not the classroom. Hopefully the classroom gave you the capacity to think – the workplace is where you turn your dreams into visions and your visions into reality.

Insurance, Coding and Apgar Scores

In the WSJ’s Student Weekly Wrap Up for the week of May 21 – 28, 2009 articles addressed a new insurance plan introduced by republican congressional leaders; patients undergoing preventative exams covered by their employer’s insurance plan but ending up with unexpected costs and finally, the score developed by Dr. Virgina Apgar which is used to evaluate a baby’s medical condition immediately following birth.

MBA 719 students should review the republican plan. How does it differ from plans being discussed by congressional democrats? In a seperate article on this blog entitled, “Walk and Don’t Walk”, read the abstract of the article written by Bill Ruse and a class of MBA 679 students in 2007. How does their plan differ from either the republican or democratic plan?

What is coding and what is its purpose? What does CPT stand for? What well know medical association publishes the official CPT text?

What does the Apgar score measure? How has infant mortality changed since the score was first used in the 1930’s?

You’re in a big city to visit a friend but you’re lost. You call your friend and ask for directions to their house. They ask you where you are and you glance at opposite corners, read the signs and say “I’m at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk”. What you said may have been true, but you’ll never get to your friend’s house.

Unfortunately we’re at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk in healthcare. We may know what has to be done but we have to transverse an impossible political maze to get there. Our students do not have the restrictions of party politics. Perhaps we should turn to them for advice on how to fix the health care system. Well we did just that and we published their suggestions in the University of Findlay’s on-line journal

Global Health – An on-line Journal for the Digital Age

Copy and paste the following link in your browser window to read. Take This Health Care System and if you’re Not Better, Call Me in the Morning.

“Click Here”

or

“Read Below”

If this blog forces you to swallow a placebo, what can you reasonably expect will happen? No permanent harm I hope! A placebo is really an inert substance given in clinical trials to one of two groups of patients. One group gets the real drug being tested, the other gets the placebo.

But then again, the word placebo has a more soothing definition. Merriam Websters Online Dictionary indicates that a placebo is “something tending to sooth”. Other definitions range from a “pacifier” to the Roman Catholic Churches “vespers of the office for the dead”. Let’s stick with the more soothing definition.

We’ll both sooth and challenge your mind. Let’s hope neither of us transcends the office of the dead.

A final exam question ask a class to consider that they had invented a time machine and that they traveled forward in time to inauguration day in the United States during January, 2017. After returning to the present they were to write a report for their healthcare board on how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had changed health care.

The nice thing about being an instructor is that you grade exams, not take them. But that really is unfair. Here’s what I would say after landing in my time machine – back to May, 2009.

Inauguration Day – 2017 – Washington, D.C.

Oh Canada. As the new President stepped through the door of the oval office, her attention was immediately drawn to the letter which was the only paperwork on an otherwise clean desk. She knew this luxury of orderliness would not last for long.

It has long been a tradition for the outgoing President to leave a letter for his or her successor. The personal letterhead of President Obama confirmed that tradition was being followed. Over the past eight years the nation had moved much closer to a universal health care system patterned after the Canadian system.

The new President opened the letter and smiled. It was both congratulatory and challenging. The congratulations she expected. The challenges were precisely listed and included items that were her strengths and passions – not the least of which was healthcare. On the other hand, the staggering national debt was something she noted in the list. So much for passions!

Over the past eight years the nation had moved much closer to a universal health care system patterned after the Canadian system. During the last two presidential terms unions had grown much stronger as they continued their push for full universal coverage. Providers still fought to retain some semblance of capitalism and the free enterprise system. The large managed care industry, usually at odds with providers, was now their ally. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

The first gentleman walked in. He reminded his wife that it was time to leave for the formal inauguration ceremonies. Leaning over the President’s shoulder, he glanced at the letter she was reading and smiled. He realized that during her term what they had sought to achieve six presidential terms ago was about to become reality.

Is there a Santa Claus? Virginia has been led to believe there is such a jolly fellow. Millions of children feel likewise. As 2008 draws to a close we need the mystic of belief that there is a Santa Claus and that under the Christmas tree he has left a Return Card – good for returning “one year” and getting our money back.

Alas, I must have been a bad boy. The tell tale cookie crumbs were there, so I knew Santa had visited (and the cookies were yummy). But no Return Card! That means I’m stuck with 2008. I can’t erase it from history and I certainly can’t get my money back.

Perhaps fiscal 2008 needed to happen. It forced us to reconsider a life of materialism and concentrate on helping others – our families, neighbors, friends and most of all, total strangers. Isn’t that what Christmas should be all about – helping others less fortunate all year long. Ah, yes Virginia. There is a Santa Claus. He appeared a bit thinner this year but his smile and expression of hope was brighter than ever.