Overcoming Innocence

A Lifelong Process

In a previous post I wrote about the lessons I learned from my father, a surgeon.  While he loved his profession, he also had deep reservations which he spoke to me about. It seems I took it in at a deep level because I was not exactly a rebel at such a young age. But over time I found myself having to clear my perception of all kinds of health care alternatives. And each time I found myself examining alternative pathways. And, looking back I think what was happening was that my intuitive personality was dictating that I search for alternatives and possibilities.

Searching Psychology

When I began my studies in college I was told psychology was a science. Well, of sorts. Definitely not hard science entirely. There was experimental psychology and there was clinical psychology. When I was accepted into graduate school at Duke it was in the experimental psychology program. it was a matter of a very few weeks before I walked into the chairman’s office and requested a change to clinical. Graciously he agreed.

Interface with Medicine

Early on we began clinical experience at Duke University Medical Center and eventually I did my internship there. It was eye opening. Up close and personal I interfaced with people I admired and some who horrified me even though they were highly respected. The echoes of my father’s positions were significant.

Now I’m Looking Back

Here it is decades later and I see a process of search and discovery. In this series I’m going to share my thoughts about health care and “treatment of illness”. Notice that there are quotation marks there. There are realities and there are dicta. I found myself weaving through a system which I saw as needing substantive modernization and reevaluation if not downright reform at all levels.

Rushing At the Future

And now we find ourselves being pressed into information technology and changes we are only now beginning to understand. The title of this blog is Cusp of Reality and I firmly believe that medicine resides on a vibrating cusp as well. In coming posts I’ll  be sharing my view of health care realities, misgivings about illness and diagnosis. I’ll be referring to revisions of definitions of illness, the difference between illness and life management. While much of what I experienced was in the psychological sphere, it is impossible to separate it from physiological, cultural and logical influences as well. We are on a rough road into the future and we need to explore and study what may lie before us. There I am again as the intuitive personality type facing a world of possibilities. But much of my viewpoint is conditioned  by experience. Jump on board and let’s explore together. 

What are your biggest concerns about health care?

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