Whenever I see an ad for medical services in the United Arab Emirates, and the headline or text indicates the key benefit for this clinic or group is that it is AMERICAN, I wince.
I feel a pang of nostalgia for what use to be but is no longer. That is the quality and worldwide status of American healthcare. For several decades American healthcare was the best in the world, and everyone who could afford it went to the U.S. when serious health problems required treatment.
In the mid 1980s one friend worked for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and her job was to act as personal attendant to the potenates of the world. She strategized every move of famous (and infamous) patients and their entourages, to details such as seating away from windows in cafes to lessen possibility of assassination. Such was the quality and status of American healthcare. No more.
By the 1990s, the Mayo Clinic realized it had serious competition within the US, and competition grew overseas in the last decade of the 20th century. By the middle of this first decade of the 21st century, medical care for serious health problems (such as heart surgery) is just as good–or better–in select hospitals in India, for example, and the cost is one-tenth of US prices. The Mayo Clinic re-positioned itself by opening up regional offices around the US and depending upon its long-standing reputation for medical care.
American Model: Unhealthy Outcomes
Like many US universities setting up campuses overseas, American medical schools are doing the same. And the American medical institutions are leading their foreign clients right down the same path that has put US healthcare where it is now–at the bottom of industrialized nations. Other nations should learn from our errors–not duplicate them!
The World Organization of Family Doctors met in Dubai this week. Dr. Richard Roberts, a Wisconsin physician and president-elect of the organization, told the Gulf News that the UAE risks making the same mistakes as the US by putting more emphasis on development of medical specialties than on primary healthcare.
This Gulf nation is restructuring its healthcare system–with legions of advisors from Harvard Medical School, Cleveland Clinic, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Roberts told the Gulf News, “The UAE is making the same mistakes as the US, listening to (the likes of) Harvard and Cleveland Clinic. It’s like a nuclear arms race. Everybody will be trying to top everybody with their special this and special that.”
Treating the “whole person”
Primary care or family medicine physicians are the doctors trained to consider the whole person. To anyone outside of allopathic medicine (either as a practitioner or a patient), this sounds peculiar. I have compared the medical specialists to blind men trying to describe an elephant–they can only “see” that area that is their speciality and have no comprehension on how the whole system works. This was my experience in diagnosing and treating a chronic illness.
And it is in chronic illnesses, especially, where the US model fails. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the US worst among 19 industrialized nations in preventing deaths due to treatable conditions. Indications are that the UAE health officials have heard the message. Let’s hope for this nation they pay careful attention.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
