Shurman-Patients & Physicians

Marc thanks for your clear focus on the bigger picture here. [Where is the patient in all of this?]  We greatly appreciate your ability to see the forest through the trees, when looking at modern health care.  

Just as there is much the healthcare industry can do to improve treating patients as whole people, there is much that we, as patients and families, can do to help our health care providers.

My wife has been facing a series of critical illnesses: Myelodysplasia Syndrome, leading to Acute Mylelogenous Leukemia, Kidney Failure, and Congestive Heart Failure.  My wife was given only a few months to live a year ago; We discovered that we simply could not wait for the health care industry to repair it's self.

We found some relief and better care by simply viewing our health care providers as human beings, with concerns, limitations and gifts, and working with them as such.  My wife is now in her ninth month of remission from Acute Mylelogenous Leukemia and she has regained almost full kidney and heart function.  You can trace her hero’s journey through our modern health care system here.  http://www.mindspring.com/~shurman/  

We quickly discovered that all we could do was work WITH our health care providers and remember to bridge our attention from the fine details and "numbers" of each test result to the bigger picture of life and our quality of life.  Otherwise, we and the doctors and nurses would soon lose sight of ourselves as humans rather than as collections of symptoms, roles and rules.  We are engaged in this process as if our lives depend on it.  Even when the results are very much on a downward trend, keeping the bigger picture in sight (and prayer), are all we can do to help improve our health and quality of life. 

Here is what I think we are doing, that is making a difference. 

We are interested in our Doctors, Nurses, and the myriad other health care providers we encounter. We have been interested in who they are and what they are up to in their lives:  just as you would be with a new neighbor or colleague.

We know that one of our hematologist's is remodeling her Eichler house.  We were able share tips and to commiserate about how disruptive such remodels are.  We knew of another key member of Bonnie’s health care team upcoming retirement, and contributed to her party.   We followed one of our key doctors’ call up in the Army reserve and deployment to Kosovo.  We kept up by e-mail to thank him and inform him of Bonnie’s unexpected return to health. 

We noticed that our caregivers are often running so fast that they are skipping meals etc. Once a month we buy 3 dozen Mrs. Field’s cookies from the cafeteria or go to the deli and get a big basket of sandwiches and take them into the clinic for our health care workers, receptionists, nurses aides and doctors.  Our caregivers are most appreciative of our taking notice of them.   We see that such little acts of kindness literally shift their attention to the bigger picture of “give and take” between people.

As briefly as possible, we make ourselves real to them. Before a meeting with our doctors I passed out my favorite picture of my wife when she was healthy. They took some time looking at it, and asked when it was taken etc.  We put up pictures of our kids and grandchild up in our hospital room. This made it much easier for Doctors and Nurses to relate to us as whole humans and the context in which we are working to get healthy.

In summary, whatever we can do to easily and appropriately come to know and acknowledge our care providers, has gone a very long way toward getting "whole health care".

Since we do not want to be treated as a collection of symptoms, we take it as incumbent upon us as patients and family to show up as whole human beings who can and do care.    We have come to accept that health care today, is as much art as science.  It is amazing how good the health care we have received, in part because we find ways to co-operate with our care providers. 

By the way, Marc, the fields in your Whatcom health care system [Shared Care Plan] are wonderful in helping along these lines: showing the patients goals and his network of help / family and friends etc. http://www.patientpowered.org/PatientSite/SelfManagement.htm

I suggest you make fields for pictures of the same as a part of the record;  To get more dimension into health care, it probably pays to add more human dimensions to the patient record. 

Daniel Shurman

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