Editorial By Rebecca Bertin, MD
When President Obama uttered these words from the podium (not for the first time) at the Democratic National Convention, he addressed a growing problem with the way we as a society face conflicts.
With the rise of the internet and social media, it seems that the evolution of our society has been in the direction of observing and commenting on life more often than actually living it.
The latest sweeping trend of Pokemon Go shows how much more interested we are in virtual achievements than real ones. I
’m grateful for this exhortation from our nation’s leader to turn against this momentum and actually act on our opinions rather than blogging about them. Because, let’s face it, it’s so much easier to sit back and criticize “the system” than it is to try to change it.
As family physicians we encounter this challenge in multiple arenas. With patients, we spend countless visits trying to convince patients to “vote” for their own health. We try to help them make lifestyle changes to prevent or reduce pain from arthritis, complications from diabetes, or organ damage from drug use, when it’s much easier to eat poorly and be sedentary and then complain about the consequences.
In our practices, it takes less effort to complain about too many patients, too little help, and too much red tape, than it does to propose solutions and try new things. And as a specialty, it costs us less (in the short term, anyway) to rail against a system that undervalues primary care and fails to support access to care that patients need than it does to lobby for system wide change.
So let’s take Mr. Obama’s advice. Let’s start “voting” for our patients, for ourselves, and for our specialty. We can do this in many different ways – in our clinical encounters, our offices, and our local, statewide, and national medical academies.
Come join us at LAAFP member events, or at CAFP conferences.
If you’re not sure where to start, there’s an election in November. Vote.
