How Healthcare Could Affect the Quality of Life Essay Sample

As technology advances, populations increase, and with that- diseases, more and more people will die. This is not meant to be something that comes off in a dark, grievous way; however, in a realistic, lateral meaning. in this country, as well as most of the world, many health care representatives and factions focus on people that have a disease, are dying, or have a disease that will inevitably bring them death. While most people think that it is very important to not only diagnose but treat these people- there is a high number of medical professionals and psychologists that believe it is equally as important to focus on not only regular checkups on the healthy, but active preventatives for those who are not terminally ill. While it is important to treat a disease. something exponentially more important is preventing the disease in the first place. medical care should be extended optionally, further beyond the general aspect of people beginning the process of dying, those who are currently healthy should readily have aspects of medical technology to tell them what they should work on, and what they can do to prevent certain terminal illnesses.

The medical model, an extraordinarily important aspect in not only modern medical infrastructure, but technology and society. in the past, as well as the present medical professionals have mainly had focus on discovering people that have diseases, figuring out how to treat the people who already have a disease, and how to prolong people's life for as long as possible. In the first video, Ira Byock, MD, who is the director of palliative medicine at Darkmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire as well as a professor of anesthesiology exclaims that “we should not only focus on the currently infected and dying.” (YouTube). What he specifically means by this is that to minimize the amount of people that are dying slowly and painfully, we need to focus on the healthy. In this specific aspect what we need to do is create an available health care that is able to actively look for not only diseases that can be diagnosed but find leading causes in a person's health that may lead to a disease, or life-threatening disease in general. We need preventatives, not prolongates. 

In comparison to the medical model, the human development model is a practice in psychology that focuses on the way that humans are developed overtime. This can directly reflect what is needed in the medical model. While we are developing, becoming adults, and learning new things about life I think that there are specific things that we need to be able to achieve the most in life. Much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, certain objectives need to first be met before obtaining others. For this exact same reason, it is believed that the medical model is written backwards. Rather than focusing on the development of a human being to the end of its life, it focuses on the end of its life and not the development to prevent the end. This statement specifically both compliments and differs from the medical model because it is exactly what the medical model should be while it is not.

The human development model will absolutely aid people in the process of dying. the reason that I say this so firmly is (like I said in the previous paragraph.) the human developmental model is exactly what the medical model needs to be based off of entire lifespan. The entire life. Not only diagnosing the end. In Stages of human development: What it is & why it's important, the educationally sourced article speaks of the eight different stages of human development, as well as why they are important. Even though someone is dying, this doesn't mean that they still can't flourish in whatever aspect that they might be doing. For example: if someone is in stage 2 (toddlerhood) it is extremely simple to continue being a toddler even though you're dying; however, if someone is in the later stages of life such has middle or late adulthood, it is a bit more mentally difficult. In some cases, this may even be physically difficult depending on the way that the person is dying. Nevertheless, this can still give them a sustainable feeling as to where, and what they should be doing at this part in their life.

“Patients treated most aggressively are at increased risk of infections and medical errors that come from on coordinated care, such as doctors prescribing drugs that duplicate or interact with other drugs,” (Aggressive Medical Care). It is almost as if the current state of healthcare and insurance maintain, contribute to, and neglect the problem at hand. While so many family members are extraordinarily focused on preserving the life of a family member, not many are able to realize that that family member is most likely not conscious partially or literally. When there is no say to someone else besides a written will, all you have is experience. If a doctor consistently says that “being in the ICU for a couple of days, two a few months,” Sometimes being “strapped down,” or “sedated,” (CBS 2021) while waiting for death is a significantly worse quality of life then if you were to just die out right in the first place. To make all of this even worse, CBS Interactive states that on average it costs $10,000 a day to maintain someone's life in an ICU. 

Hospice, and palliative care are both methods of taking care of someone that is not only guaranteed to be dying but is dying. The main difference between the two is that Hospice is a place where someone goes when they're about to die, and palliative care is where someone goes when they are dying. because someone is in palliative care does not mean that they are 100% going to die, but they are in a life-threatening situation. Palliative care is a good representation of the human development model reflecting the medical model. “Palliative care can help patients with medication, nutritional changes, relaxation and techniques, emotional and spiritual support, support for children are family caregivers,” (Types of … 2019). and much more.

Having “the talk,” which we all know what that is. “Families who have lost loved ones after strenuous courses of invasive treatments often say they regret not having recognized sooner that things were going downhill and adjusting plans and expectations accordingly. "If someone has progressive cancer and is 87, and her kidneys are failing, and doctors recommend ever more treatments for every disease, you need to ask what the larger plan is," says Ira Byock, M.D., director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H.” (Aggressive 2021). Another option that you have is to try to get a general outlook of your doctor. While it's important to consult the opinion of your own family something that's just as important is to consult a professional. See what they have to say, if they think that it's possible to pull through then consult your family and decide on whether it is possible for your family member to make a recovery.

Citations

Aggressive medical care. (n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/04/too-much-treatment/index.htm. 

CBS Interactive. (n.d.). The cost of dying: End-of-life care. CBS News. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-dying-end-of-life-care/. 

Lyu, H., Xu, T., Brotman, D., Mayer-Blackwell, B., Cooper, M., Daniel, M., Wick, E. C., Saini, V., Brownlee, S., & Makary, M. A. (2017, September 6). Overtreatment in the United States. PloS one. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587107/. 

Stages of human development: What it is & why it's important. Maryville Online. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://online.maryville.edu/online-bachelors-degrees/human-development-and-family-studies/resources/stages-of-human-development/. 

Types of palliative care. Cancer.Net. (2019, July 22). Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.cancer.net/coping-with-cancer/physical-emotional-and-social-effects-cancer/types-palliative-care. 

YouTube. (2011). Shortcomings of the medical model at end of life. YouTube. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK8IL2-zYN8.