Coming back from a big healthcare conference, especially the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's annual conference, always seems to make me realize how little my friends and family know about healthcare and how it works. I can't say that I knew much about the topic myself until I started writing about it two and a half years ago, but it's easy to forget that most people under the age of 30 don't know how the complex web that is U.S. healthcare actually functions (mainly because people this age are generally healthy). I guess healthcare is one of those things that you don't know much about until you are forced to know about it, and at that point it's kind of too late because understanding it takes more than a day or two.
Anyway, having been to this specific conference for two years now, I have left both years convinced that those people in charge of hospitals and other healthcare entities truly want to do the right thing for the general public. Most attendees leave energized, convinced they will bring new quality improvement projects back to their facilities. This year there was a lot of "well with the new administration, hopefully things are going to change" going around, and I agree with this sentiment because in its current state, healthcare for this country does not work; it costs an outrageous amount of money ($2 trillion this year, although that is set to increase exponentially in the coming years), is poorly organized (why does my ER doc not know what medical advice my primary care physician has dispensed?) , and does not serve the entire population (I think it's something like 47 million people in this country who are uninsured).
Anyway, I'm rambling about this here because it's something I've come to realize that I'm passionate about. When I started writing about healthcare, I never thought I'd be excited to write about patient safety every day... but I guess I've turned into somewhat of a nerd in that aspect. It's at topic that I hope that my friends and family take a bigger interest in, because we are all a part of the healthcare system!
Anyway, here's a clip that was shown during a keynote speech- it got the audience kind of revved up (it was shown in relation to global health). Enjoy!
The Girl Effect
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Sobering visit to the nursing home
Last week I visited my grandmother in the nursing home with my mom. I've come to terms with Grandma Helen (the woman on the left in this picture, I'm the baby and my other grandmother is on the right) spending the rest of her days in this place--she has been there for five years already which is longer than any of my family members expected. She has dementia, a condition that has taken a once shtarker (strong person) to a frail old woman whose only request is to be wheeled around the halls of her new residence. She recognizes me, but like I'm someone she once knew and she cannot place from where. She knows her own children better. I owe much of my Yiddish knowledge to Grandma Helen, who grew up in Poland and survived the Holocaust to settle in the Boston area.
But anyway, this post actually is not about Grandma Helen, it's about the cute little Indian man who wheeled his own wheelchair right up to the set of chairs my mom, grandmother, and I were sitting in. Now most of the people in the nursing home are just like my grandma--either they have no idea what is going on and are combative and loud, or they kind of just sit there silently watching the day pass by. There was one woman--we called her Marilyn because every single day she, or I can only assume the nurses or a member of her family, piled on the makeup (Marilyn, was for Marilyn Monroe)--she would yell vulgarities at you as you walked by and would often try to get me to attend to her for some unnecessary reason (she and many other residents confuse any younger looking person for a nurse). There was 99, a tiny little asian woman nicknamed with that number becuase she entered the nursing home at age 99 and I believe lived until 104, and used to point and gesture when she needed something (pointing at someone walking by and then pointing in her mouth meant she was hungry)
But this man was different. He actually knew what was going on, he could grasp what more his life held for him while he was living inside the nursing home. Just by taking the action of trying to become involved in conversation showed me that he wanted some more normal human interaction, more than the daily monotonous nursing home schedule. I asked where he was from "India, of course", he replied. "What do you do?"
"I write about hospitals and healthcare," I said. This interested him very much. He told me he worked as a heart surgeon for Boston University for his career. Almost all of his children were doctors now.
"Do they come to visit you?" I asked.
"Yes, sometimes. But after my wife died it was just me and a few months ago I came to live here." His face got so sad when he thought about his wife, but what he said next nearly broke my heart.
"I am going to die here," he said, his dark coffee-colored, wrinkled face looking into mine. He knew, with certainty, that even with all that he had achieved, all of the hope life had brought him, his last months--mabye years-- would be spent in this place, with peers his same age who could not eat a meal without the aid of a nurse. Perhaps that would be his reality at some point too.
I think it's mostly because residents at the nursing home are mostly "not with it"--they have dementia, or alzheimers, or some other debilitating condition, and it's easy to think (at least for me) that only their family members have to suffer with seeing what they have become. But this man, a former doctor, could fully understand what was happening to him, that he had little to look forward to. It made me immensely sad for him.
Sorry for the rather depressing post, but sometimes I think about what life will be like for today's 20-somethings when we're 80-somethings. Will there be an improved method for caring for the elderly? I can only hope so since the baby boom generation will surely break the current nursing home method.
Next post will be more upbeat!
But anyway, this post actually is not about Grandma Helen, it's about the cute little Indian man who wheeled his own wheelchair right up to the set of chairs my mom, grandmother, and I were sitting in. Now most of the people in the nursing home are just like my grandma--either they have no idea what is going on and are combative and loud, or they kind of just sit there silently watching the day pass by. There was one woman--we called her Marilyn because every single day she, or I can only assume the nurses or a member of her family, piled on the makeup (Marilyn, was for Marilyn Monroe)--she would yell vulgarities at you as you walked by and would often try to get me to attend to her for some unnecessary reason (she and many other residents confuse any younger looking person for a nurse). There was 99, a tiny little asian woman nicknamed with that number becuase she entered the nursing home at age 99 and I believe lived until 104, and used to point and gesture when she needed something (pointing at someone walking by and then pointing in her mouth meant she was hungry)
But this man was different. He actually knew what was going on, he could grasp what more his life held for him while he was living inside the nursing home. Just by taking the action of trying to become involved in conversation showed me that he wanted some more normal human interaction, more than the daily monotonous nursing home schedule. I asked where he was from "India, of course", he replied. "What do you do?"
"I write about hospitals and healthcare," I said. This interested him very much. He told me he worked as a heart surgeon for Boston University for his career. Almost all of his children were doctors now.
"Do they come to visit you?" I asked.
"Yes, sometimes. But after my wife died it was just me and a few months ago I came to live here." His face got so sad when he thought about his wife, but what he said next nearly broke my heart.
"I am going to die here," he said, his dark coffee-colored, wrinkled face looking into mine. He knew, with certainty, that even with all that he had achieved, all of the hope life had brought him, his last months--mabye years-- would be spent in this place, with peers his same age who could not eat a meal without the aid of a nurse. Perhaps that would be his reality at some point too.
I think it's mostly because residents at the nursing home are mostly "not with it"--they have dementia, or alzheimers, or some other debilitating condition, and it's easy to think (at least for me) that only their family members have to suffer with seeing what they have become. But this man, a former doctor, could fully understand what was happening to him, that he had little to look forward to. It made me immensely sad for him.
Sorry for the rather depressing post, but sometimes I think about what life will be like for today's 20-somethings when we're 80-somethings. Will there be an improved method for caring for the elderly? I can only hope so since the baby boom generation will surely break the current nursing home method.
Next post will be more upbeat!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Welcome to my blog
Hello blog readers!
Just wanted to welcome you to my blog, Crazy Mishpocha. I decided to create a blog about my friends and family because really, spending time with these people usually causes me to do some introspective thinking about life and has helped me form my ideals. Although I don't know how to speak Yiddish, I thought that incorporating a Yiddish phrase into my blog title would be appropriate, considering I'm known to throw in random Yiddish phrases into everyday conversation (this is mostly because my mom grew up speaking Yiddish and both of my grandparent pairs could speak the language). I'm going to try to make these posts ones that many people can relate to, or at least posts to pique your interest. Enjoy!
Just wanted to welcome you to my blog, Crazy Mishpocha. I decided to create a blog about my friends and family because really, spending time with these people usually causes me to do some introspective thinking about life and has helped me form my ideals. Although I don't know how to speak Yiddish, I thought that incorporating a Yiddish phrase into my blog title would be appropriate, considering I'm known to throw in random Yiddish phrases into everyday conversation (this is mostly because my mom grew up speaking Yiddish and both of my grandparent pairs could speak the language). I'm going to try to make these posts ones that many people can relate to, or at least posts to pique your interest. Enjoy!
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