Saturday, September 8, 2018

M3.2 Vulnerable Populations

I really like Dr. Rishi Manchanda's idea of training physicians and clinicians to think upstream when diagnosing a patient's condition. Thinking upstream can help physicians and clinicians identify the patient's vulnerabilities of their health condition. If physicians and clinicians asked broader questions about the patient's home and work environment, they can sooner recognize if the patient is from a vulnerable population, where these group of people are linked to more adverse health outcomes. Knowing that critical information opens up a lot of opportunities to pinpoint the root issues of the health condition. Addressing root issues, similar to what Dr. Manchanda was speaking about in his TED talk, is a more effective solution because it solves the health issue almost complete. Compared to just prescribing medication, pills can only remedy the issue for a short while. Like what Dr. Tyrone B. Hayes said, finding the cure is important but finding the cause is more necessary.

2 comments:

  1. Hi,
    Do you think this responsibility falls on the doctor or the patient more? At some point the patient must take responsibility for what they eat and use. I do agree with you as well. It is a mix of these two ideas that need to occur.

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  2. Hi Sandy,
    I think it's absolutely necessary to adopt a more upstream approach to healthcare in order to avoid inequity. I also liked the idea to train physicians to incorporate this approach, although this would most likely imply having to include this in medical school training (again, upstream thinking).

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