Vernonia freedom., January 22, 1981, Page 8, Image 8

Page 8— Vernonia Freedom
Thursday, January 22, 1981
Post WWII disease treatment capabilities soar in U.S.
continued from page 3
and immunization programs, most
public programs do not address the
fundamental problems. They have
been misguided and misdirected and
largely oriented toward single
diseases.
Health
promotion
campaigns have naively emphasized
the need to eliminate unhealthy
behavior rather than seeking to
eradicate the sources of stress that
create the behavior.
An endless stream of books,
magazines, and articles describing
diseases, symptoms, and treatments
has produced a nation of people
unduly
concerned with
bodily
functions and afraid to wander
beyond reach of doctors and
hospitals. Physicians faced with
excessive
< demands,
impossible
expectations,
and
threats
of
malpractice are ipressured into
“defensive
medicine,”
ordering
costly, too frequent, sometimes
unnecessary tests and operations. A
whole constellation of rights and
decisions with respect to lifestyle has
been taken from the family and
individuals and placed in the hands of
medical or quasi-medical institutions.
In an age of shrinking economic
resources, continued medicalization
may have catastrophic economic
consequences. The current emphasis
on health insurance, acute care,
hospitals, tests, operations, and
procedures is very costly. In reality,
most modem illnesses are chronic,
and they require a different kind of
long-term care with adequate social
supports and education of patients
and
families
for
self-care.
Medicalization has also resulted in
substantial mistrust between doctor
and patient, questionable research
priorities, and cumbersome and
costly controls and regulations.
DEMEDICALIZATION
The situation seems to cry for some
balance and some brakes. And, in
fact, there are signs that a
countervailing force — a trend toward
“demedicalization’ ’
is gaining
steam.
At the forefront of the new trend is
the practice of self-care, which
recognizes the contributions to health
that come from good habits, self-help,
and good nutrition. Thousands of
mutual aid groups have sprung up for
disease prevention, health promotion,
and care of chronic illness, such as
arthritis.
Demedicalization represents a turn-
away from what many perceive as
technological medical care. It is
fueled by a growing belief that people
have a right to privacy, a right to
decide how they live and die, and a
right to be independent of armies of
experts who would probe and
evaluate their mental competence and
functional ability.
Although demedicalization is, at
the moment, David facing Goliath, it
represents a viable means of changing
the course of health care history. This
will require that we redefine
unrealistic expectations for medical
care and begin to reform unhealthy
social and personal attitudes and
THE SEA LION
I glimpse the sea lion on his icy boat,
It looks like a castle with a clear,
pure, moat
I glimpse the
through
POETRY CORNER
sea lion frolicking
The icy foam. “Art!Art!” says he,
that wonderful
Animal, the seal lion, the manatee.
TonyDettmers
behaviors, which are outside the
scope of doctors and hospitals.
It will mean, also, that we as a
society begin to recognize that our
health is far too precious to surrender
to the control of others.
NEXT WEEK: Rosemary
Stevens, professor of the
history and sociology of
science at the University
of Pennsylvania, discusses
“The Shaping of Our
Medical System. ”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOANN ELLISON RODGERS,
M.S., has been the national science
and medical correspondent for Hearst
Newspapers since 1966, serving also
as a columnist since 1973. In
addition, she has been a health
columnist
for
“Seventeen,”
“Mademoiselle,” and “Playgirl” and
has contributed articles to a wide
variety of magazines. She has
received awards for her writing from
the American Heart Association, the
American Cancer Society, and the
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, among
others.
The views expressed in COURSES
BY NEWSPAPER are those of the
authors only and do not necessarily
reflect those of the University of
California, the National Endowment
for
the
Humanities,
or
the
participating
newspapers
and
colleges.
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