Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
The documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, criticizes the current healthcare system designed for profit maximization, a physician’s dilemma between financial incentives and professionalism, and quick fixes rather than prevention of illness. The U.S. government spends $2.7 trillion annually on healthcare, an average cost of $8,000 per person as compared to $3,000 in the rest of the developed world (Escape Fire). From $2.7 trillion, $300 billion are spent on pharmaceutical drugs every year, almost as much as the rest of the world combined (Escape Fire). The mindset that drugs are the only appropriate way to treat disease is invalid. The prescription of drugs to …show more content…
Dr. Erin Martin of Oregon was so appalled with the government’s strict rules of time allowed per patient visit, payment based on number of patients seen in one day, and the number of treatments administered that she had to leave Family Health Clinic. Dr. Martin states, “I became a doctor because I care about patients…and working here I can’t help them…to feel that way when you come home is demoralizing” (Escape Fire). For Dr. Martin, money does not drive her passion to treat patients. Each patient accompanied a different level of complexity from having diabetes to being acutely suicidal. Allowing seven minutes of patients is ridiculous and cannot fix such health conditions. Dr. Martin felt …show more content…
healthcare system continues to surge profits through overmedication and overtreatment. The medical industry can take various approaches to simultaneously maintain costs, maximize profits, and promote patient well-being. The way I have shaped my lifestyle of being health conscious has influenced my career path of focusing on prevention to limit the extent on medical intervention. Encouraging patients to become assertive in their own medical treatment through education is crucial. Without patients, medical treatment would be non-existent. Avoiding intervention begin with patients themselves. Many patients uncomprehend why a certain medical treatment is necessary, the risks and benefits involved, and alternatives to the specific treatment. The lack of knowledge is conveniently used to the physician’s advantage. Hence, physicians are able to administer many procedures because the patient does not know any better. When faced with a medical decision about a procedure, it is important to ask oneself what the procedure is, what the effects, the benefits and risks associated, long-term consequences, and costs. Patients, as judges of their own treatment, have to educate themselves beforehand. In a century that worships technological advances, internet resources are readily available in order to research physicians, hospitals, and to stray away from false drug marketing. Taking time to learn about one’s own medical situation limits unnecessary
The documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, criticizes the current healthcare system designed for profit maximization, a physician’s dilemma between financial incentives and professionalism, and quick fixes rather than prevention of illness. The U.S. government spends $2.7 trillion annually on healthcare, an average cost of $8,000 per person as compared to $3,000 in the rest of the developed world (Escape Fire). From $2.7 trillion, $300 billion are spent on pharmaceutical drugs every year, almost as much as the rest of the world combined (Escape Fire). The mindset that drugs are the only appropriate way to treat disease is invalid. The prescription of drugs to …show more content…
Dr. Erin Martin of Oregon was so appalled with the government’s strict rules of time allowed per patient visit, payment based on number of patients seen in one day, and the number of treatments administered that she had to leave Family Health Clinic. Dr. Martin states, “I became a doctor because I care about patients…and working here I can’t help them…to feel that way when you come home is demoralizing” (Escape Fire). For Dr. Martin, money does not drive her passion to treat patients. Each patient accompanied a different level of complexity from having diabetes to being acutely suicidal. Allowing seven minutes of patients is ridiculous and cannot fix such health conditions. Dr. Martin felt …show more content…
healthcare system continues to surge profits through overmedication and overtreatment. The medical industry can take various approaches to simultaneously maintain costs, maximize profits, and promote patient well-being. The way I have shaped my lifestyle of being health conscious has influenced my career path of focusing on prevention to limit the extent on medical intervention. Encouraging patients to become assertive in their own medical treatment through education is crucial. Without patients, medical treatment would be non-existent. Avoiding intervention begin with patients themselves. Many patients uncomprehend why a certain medical treatment is necessary, the risks and benefits involved, and alternatives to the specific treatment. The lack of knowledge is conveniently used to the physician’s advantage. Hence, physicians are able to administer many procedures because the patient does not know any better. When faced with a medical decision about a procedure, it is important to ask oneself what the procedure is, what the effects, the benefits and risks associated, long-term consequences, and costs. Patients, as judges of their own treatment, have to educate themselves beforehand. In a century that worships technological advances, internet resources are readily available in order to research physicians, hospitals, and to stray away from false drug marketing. Taking time to learn about one’s own medical situation limits unnecessary