Human Development and Diversity

Holistic vs Systems

 At Antioch, students are encouraged to lend their voices to discussions that impact the world, the community, themselves and their loved ones. It was in the context of community that I spent one Human Development and Diversity class exploring, thinking, sharing and finally writing about health care.  Below are some excerpts.

 

Illness that is of a chronic nature has a huge impact on individuals, as well as their family and/or friends. Often, with the onset of a serious/chronic illness comes the experience of being a widget in the health care industry. As an industry, health care has an inability to care for patients on an individual basis. Cost structures take the illness and systemize it to the point where methodology and practice maybe compromised.

While this impersonal method of heath care is promoted as cost effective, in reality it increases costs in the long run by not treating the patient holistically. Impersonal health care adds to the disassociation patients often experience; for the ill body, the new family/friend dynamic, the medical profession, and the possibilities of wellness.