A thoughtful and inspiring post from a psychiatrist, of all specialties, concerned about current medical education expanding its scope into practice and away from the centrality of the human body itself. In What’s Wrong With Medical Education Today? “I was shocked, however, to learn that anatomy had been reduced to a mere eight weeks during the first year of medical school, instead of the full year that comprised my education 40 years ago. What’s more, those eight weeks now also included embryology and radiology — the logic for bundling these subjects together I could not understand nor did I ask. But eight weeks? How in the world could anyone dissect a cadaver in that time and actually learn about the human body? How could a doctor in the making have the ritualistic and for me awesome (in the best sense of the word) experience of really knowing “the body,”…” Instead …
Does Health 2.0 = Patient-Centered Service?
The 2.0 technology trends of new media, enhanced web applications, data-driven apps, and social media have advanced the sophistication and interaction of applications in most consumer domains. And co-occurring with this trend, the last three years have been filled with pronouncements of revolutionary changes in healthcare and personal health management envisioned by democratizing health information and enabling communications among people with very specific shared health concerns. Both technology innovations and consumer healthcare resources are included in the Health 2.0 arena. An exemplary Health 2.0 trend is that of health seeking communities. Several early and progressive health community sites have taken hold (Patients Like Me, CureTogether) with adoption from people in various health “communities of concern.” There are numerous specialized disease and patient community sites in every niche and using every wiki and social service. While these are not intended to replace patient communication with health professionals, they serve complementary purposes, …
