| "SELECTED QUOTES FROM STUDENTS ATTENDING CLASSES TAUGHT BY PROFESSOR TOR DAHL" |
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Quotes from Students Papers
1998 |
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Those healthcare organizations that treat patients not only as customers but also as valued guests will excel. Those who find ways to make their guest stays exceptional, where patients leave not only cured, but healed, healthy and invigorated will move the perception of hospitals as being places for the sickly to hospitals being a place for healing and growth. — Janet Shepard, Customer Satisfaction: The Customer is Always Right: Can We Afford It? ----------------------- “(Health Care) consumers do not seek services, they endure them, in good and bad models of market reform for managed care,” (McClure, 1995). The results of the study (how a chiropractor interacts with his patients) was revealing… Patient satisfaction was increased by communicating a large amount of understandable information in the initial visit supplanted by personal affective dialogue. Also: Patients reported psychological benefits such as hope and optimism from their alternative practitioners. These patients were less satisfied with traditional medicine because of a lack of hope (along with unpleasant side effects). The Placebo Effect A placebo effect is likely to be operating for many types of alternative strategies. The placebo effect exists where a patient’s condition improves even when the intervention has no therapeutic effect (e.g. a sugar pill). Improvements of up to 30% have been noted. Postulated explanations for the placebo effect are that the placebo decreases patient anxiety, which has a therapeutic effect on the disease. Additionally, it meets the expectations of the patient and creates a conditioned response in the body to boost the immune system.The effect may be the most important, perhaps even the only factor in alternative medicine. Approximately two-thirds of patient visits to primary care physicians are for low severity medical conditions. Although traditional medicine undoubtedly is helpful, the evidence cited above suggests that there is a lot more at work in healing the body than just a prescription. Traditional practitioners would do well to tap into the psychosomatic potential that alternative practitioners are exploiting. —Marc-Paul Lee, The Future of Healthcare Reimbursement: What Will Succeed Capitation? “The mind is only one way of processing life. And that is the great secret here in Western Culture, that many of the things that don’t make sense are what are most real. Things that can’t be measured are most real, most valuable. Things that can’t be proven become the foundation for a better life,” ( Ornish, 1998).. Ornish (ibid.) states that the lack of touch contributes to profound isolation and illness. Other biobehavioral therapies (i.e., meditation, imagery, and music) promote access to internal healing. —Carla J. Yost, The Caring Connection to Better Health ----------------------- Equitable distribution, appropriate technology, a focus on health promotion and disease prevention, community participation and a multisectional approach make up the five principles of primary health care (Shultz and Hatcher,1997.) —Susan Coleman, The Socioeconomic Impact of Addiction: Solutions to the Problem ----------------------- “Death is a most assured haven, never to be feared, and often to be sought,” (Montaigne). “For every illness, there is some procedure that can delay the moment of death. The question is: For how long, at what cost, at what pain, at what suffering?” (Morris Abram as quoted by Humphry & Morris, 1986). “As soon as the terrors of life reach the point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life,” (Shopenhauer, as quoted in Humphry & Kickett, 1986). —Elizabeth Ann Pruitt, “To Go Gentle into that Good Night”: Economic Implications of Physician-Assisted Suicide ----------------------- Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” (Margaret Mead). Communities are dynamic groups that people form when they share common space, interests and concerns. People experience community through close family and friendship ties and through relationships where they work, worship, study, volunteer, play and carry out their civic rights and responsibilities (Canada’s National Forum on Health, 1997). If you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will create authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organization and community (Flower). Wing, Putting Health Back into the Health Care System: The Importance of Partnerships between Health Care Organizations and Community in Canada ----------------------- It has been stated that the only people in the world who consider dying to be optional are Americans (Mann and Welle, 1997). Physicians stress maintaining life and arduously avoid death. Community accepted medical principles are utilized to sustain life. As a result, many physicians have a difficult time accepting hospice or palliative care of terminal illness. Prognosis rather than diagnosis is used to determine the appropriateness of hospice. An important issue in determining this prognosis is quality of life vs. quantity of life. Quality over quantity is emphasized in hospice (Appleton, 1996). A “good death” has been defined as “free from avoidable pain and other distress; in general accord with patient and family wishes; and reasonably consistent with clinical, cultural, and ethical standards.” A “bad death” has been characterized by “needless suffering or distress, dishonoring of patient or family wishes or values, and a sense among participants or observers that norms of decency have been offended (Beman, 1997). —Gaea Blue, Medical Futility vs. Palliative and Hospice Care Science is, at its best, the selfless and disinterested pursuit of truth. —Dennis J. O’Donnell, Publication Bias and Its Impact on Health Care Delivery The 1993 Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risk of Treatments (SUPPORT) confirmed that most Americans die in acute-care hospitals (Tolle, 1998). Yet surveys indicate that individuals, if given the opportunity, would prefer to die at home (ibid.). How does this disconnect occur? What part do physicians play in the discrepancy between what individuals prefer and what actually occurs? — Avalon R. Lance, Informed Decision-Making in the Face of Poor Prognosis at Initial Diagnosis: Intersecting Issues of Ethics and Economics Hospital administrators and physicians themselves sometimes forget that a doctor’s primary loyalty is to the patient, not his hospital. We should pay more attention to the delivery of health care to our patients and less to the delivery of patients to the health care system(George Burdick, M.D.). “If you don’t have trust, you must build it. Actions create trust. Once trust exists then words will be trusted as well,” (H. S. Zuckerman). Power originates from dependence, the will of another person and environmental influences. (Lewin, 1938, 1968). —Deborah Jorgensen, Physician-Hospital Integration: Finding New Solutions to an Old Problem — What About the Patient? Threat is the stronger motivation for wellness behavior, followed closely by the desire for exuberant well-being (Murrow and Welch). —Zoltan Varga, M.D., How Shall We Spend the “Health Care Cent?”: The Role of the National Institute of Health Service Research and Health Policy |
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