Why current healthcare will be obsolete and what we need to do about this

The writing is on the wall.

The last few decades have seen 2 groups of people: One group that is “dying longer”, yes some might call it living long but not healthy. As a physician I call it dying longer. These are folks who are disabled, obese or emaciated and depressed or demented, with multiple medical issues spending a quarter of their life in the medical system, and the last decade of life in a long term care facility. Everyone knows someone in the family that is taking a multiple medications and is still sick and needing care. 

The other group has people whose symptoms similar to their sick family members but want to resist going down the same path of chronic illness with multiple medications. Since the traditional system seems to offer nothing beyond a pill for every ill these folks are seeking alternative healing pathways.

Why are they not using the constantly advancing medical system? It is because medical system is making advances in leaps and bounds on diagnoses and management of diseases with AI (artificial intelligence) however what they are failing to see is people do not want to have the next best treatment or the greatest new drug. They simply want to be and feel well with no medications and have complete resolution of their symptoms.

Here comes the total disconnect: A system that is creating newer tests and drugs and a clientele that is interested in partnership and cure and not a patriarchal dispensing of drugs.
 
This has created a new group of “healers” who have taken to the social media and the web with personal experience of healing themselves as the only qualification needed to become an “alternative health care provider”.
 
How did this shift happen? Why did this shift happen?
The shift was slow and steady and now it has exploded (reaching that critical mass). Everywhere you turn there are several online courses to help you finding healing opportunities. Courses that help you heal your thyroid. Courses and providers who help you heal your metabolism and your gut. Businessmen, actors, activists, who have created apps and tests to address your true weight gain issues, hormone issues, autoimmune issues and the list is endless. Not only are they providing what the public is looking for they are also creating this distrust in the current medical system.
 
As with everything else that starts off with a noble cause like climate change, like animal rights, like alternative energy, seeking great health is a valid cause, but is now being monetized by everyone. And when people are desperate they will find themselves spending a lot of money and taking a lot of ill-advised treatment till they find the right solution or they actually harm themselves in the process, and become skeptical of the whole system.

The shift happened because the medical system is behind in times. It is not held to other service
industry standards where the clients’ voice is heard.
Clients I do not believe want a cable TV in their hospital room. They do not want their powdered
scrambled eggs on a platter, for breakfast. They simply want to feel well. They want results not another surgery or pill for their ill. They are tired of being tired and sick. They are tired of taking another medication or adding another supplement to their
armamentarium.
 
On the other hand today’s medical world is considered a great place to stay employed for a long
time. It costs 16 to 19 % of our GDP and yet the outcomes are a growing list of chronic medical
conditions with rising costs and insurance premiums with no end in sight. Our development is trying to put the care into the hands of the patients using apps, artificial intelligence and the growing field of telemedicine where we are educating people that their care is a click away. We are educating people to look for sickness and quick relief of symptoms when they are seeking permanent wellness.

So how do we sort through this dynamic shift?

The medical schooling needs to change. We need to embrace the need to understand how and why the body shows symptoms not simply identify and suppress this instantaneously with a drug that can only potentially cause another problem.
 
Hospital profitability needs to change. When a hospitals’ profit is tied to full beds (healthy people
do not occupy hospital beds) we will be promoting illness not wellness. Hospitals should be fewer and most of the hospitals should become healing sanctuaries where people are admitted initially for acute care they need and then transferred to the sanctuary part, where they address the root cause of illness. Here, they should educate and engage the patient in change in life style addressing stressors and the outcome being getting the body back to health.
 

This would be the best of both worlds where the provider is educated in the art of true healing and the study of the science of disease.

The medical industry is riddled with contradiction. We are trying to “cut medical costs” by getting mid-level providers to provide early detection and not true prevention( primary care), we are trying to emasculate the image of a physician by making them data collectors and with increasing regulations, in the name of efficiency(standard guidelines and EMR). We also promote the newer drugs and more expensive testing and surgeries. The medical associations
are living off the support of “Big Pharma” that thrives off of illness.

So what do we really want? What business are we truly in and who is our ideal client?

This should be our food for thought.
 

Nisha Chellam M.D. ABIHM 

Internal Medicine

Find out more about Dr N Chellam's work at this website http://holisticicon.com/ 

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Generalists

GENERALISTS FOR UK HEALTHCARE - WILL IT WORK?

A rethink of training is happening. We debate that here.

In the USA most doctors undergo four or five years training depending on whether they are medical or surgical fields and become 'generalists' (family practitioner, internal medicine physician or general surgeon). They provide the bulk of care in their areas. Some of course choose to sub-specialise into ever narrowing areas for which they undergo a further 2 to 3 years of 'fellowship' training. When it comes to care delivery the patients do have a choice (at least in theory) of seeing their Family Practioner, 'generalist' or sub-specialist; the family practitioner and/or the Emergency Department has the choice of referring patients to generalist or sub-specialist as the situation demands. Of course the generalists refer on to the specialists as needed.

Moving from the mature economy USA example to the advancing economy of India the situation is more or less the same. Doctors after their MBBS are allowed to practice as GPs and recently there is a trend of emerging opportunities to train further to become an advanced family practitioner. Many doctors obtain post-graduate training and become 'generalists' general physician, general surgeon, etc. Some obtain sub-specialty (though the Indians love the term 'super-speciality', they never call their narrow field as a 'sub-specialty') and become cardiologists, vascular surgeons, et al.

In the UK there has been in the guise of rather misguided and seemingly always wrong work force planning, the training system has, since Calman, delivered 'sub-specialists' to deliver care in the NHS. There are no more 'general physician' or 'general surgeon'. In theory a collaborative approach of all these good people is supposed to deliver high quality integrated care to the patient at the front line. In practice it falls and fails often and more. 

At the real front end where direct care is delivered by the trainees and sub-specialty doctors the sub-specialist attitude becomes a big problem. In these young doctors' minds they are very keen to learn their sub-specialty skills and they are not interested or do not have have the time to learn or deliver 'general care'. What it translates into are junior doctors who are unable or unwilling to do 'general' care. I have heard from many about numerous instances of junior doctors and non-consultant doctors being unable to do things like supra-pubic catheterisation, torsion testis, embolectomy, etc despite being on call for their relevant generality in DGHs (or even teaching hospitals). The 'sub-specialist' has to be called out to deliver what is essentially general care.

There are strong arguments for the UK sub-specialist model, mostly emotional. An example such as 'would you like to obtain the best care from the most highly trained person or be messed up by a generalist?' However since we do not train generalists in the UK we do not know what kind of care a generalist might deliver; since there are other countries training generalists, we know that generalists do deliver a high standard of care. What we also know is that care can slip between sub-specialists, care can slip due to non availability 24/7 of sub-specialists in every hospital, care can slip due to difficulty of access to sub-specialists (in the version of centralised care in major hubs) and sub-specialist based care is costly. 

Of course my favourite argument is costly care is generally not beneficial at a system level.

The UK is now at the closing stages of the 'Shape of Training' consultation to explore potential future models of training that would suit UK requirements. No favoured models have been decided yet, no decisions have been made. The consultation includes a model where more generalists would be trained to deliver the bulk of care across locations. Even within this model, UK would obviously still train sub-specialists but their numbers and the location of work could be limited.

There are many reasons why the idea of generalists would not work. First and foremost is the culture in UK where the current sub-specialist model is seen as inherently superior and in those circumstances change becomes frustratingly difficult. Sub-specialists seem to carry more glamour, power, earning opportunities and even respect; hence it is a natural aspiration for most doctors; even many general practitioners in UK want to be 'GPwSI'. Broad knowledge seems not be valued as much as deep knowledge (and by the way, broad does not equate to superficial).

However, it is important to question whether in a small country (at least relatively in terms of population and geography) with current economic difficulties it is possible or reasonable to train and maintain sub-specialists 24/7/365 in every location that care is provided; which we will have to do if we have to deliver high quality of healthcare to our population. With care being delivered outside conventional settings closer to the patient and community with concepts such as tele-health, virtual consults, hospital at home, becoming real; with technology enabling remote diagnosis to be made (smart phone ECGs and blood tests at super-store car parks); with Dr Google and crowd sourcing having the potential to be more accurate/knowledgeable than individual specialists we do need to think if the training of doctors in UK needs to move to a 'generalist' model.

I am in support of training generalists who would have in the hierarchy of NHS appointments have a higher or equal level as specialists. They should be charged with the specifics of designing and delivering high quality of care (including management responsibilities). A generalist would be far more likely to interact closely with the patients, general practitioners and specialists than now - that would be a boon and a refreshing change to the passing-the-parcel that is currently played with patients due to a system that is divided into very narrow specialties. There will of course be the rare generalist who is blind to her/his limitations who can be very dealt with proper systems in place.

What do you think will work for UK/NHS? Are generalists a good idea?

©M HEMADRI 

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Info:

Shape of Training: http://www.shapeoftraining.co.uk/

I provided oral evidence to the Shape of Training consultation as a part of BAPIO team and hence we had a specific remit to support the interests of IMG and BME doctors apart from providing general views on the various proposals and our own views as individuals. This blog does not discuss contents of BAPIO's evidence to the consultation; the above are my personal views.