Is Preventative Medicine in our Future?

In the future, preventative medicine may become true primary care. This means that the focus of primary care would be on wellness through the use of nutrition, exercise, stress management and a holistic body mind and spirit approach to care. As the emphasis is placed on things like breathing, moving, eating healthy, finding purpose and meaning in life, the need for costly drugs, surgery and other medical interventions may decrease.

Our recent history of healthcare has involved a sickness paradigm where we treat symptoms and diseases. If we make the shift to a wellness paradigm, many diseases will be avoided through prevention and improving the overall quality of life.

Wellness is much more than getting enough exercise, proper nutrition, or screening for health problems. It is an experience of aliveness that comes from your dynamic interaction between your inner and outer worlds.

Hippocrates (Father of Western Medicine 460-380BC) said, “It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease, than to know what sort of disease a person has.” Florence Nightingale (Nursing Pioneer) said, “Health is not only to be well, but to use well every power we have.”

The shift to wellness is appearing on the horizon with the healthcare reform. It will require significant change and new ways of thinking about health and wellness. The goal is a very worthy one, where individuals can achieve overall health and wellness and live a more robust life. There will always be a need for surgeries and medical intervention, but if these need to occur, outcomes may be optimized if people having these procedures are in better condition and have optimal wellness support before and after the medical intervention.

This change or shift will require role shifting and retraining for everyone. Change may best start with the next generation, our children. However, children do learn first from their parents. It is crucial for parents to be good role models with their health and wellness. The education system is teaching health promotion but the concern is to not teach with negatives like don’t smoke, don’t drink etc. These methods can be ineffective. Teaching the next generation about the mind body connection and how it relates to overall health and life wellness is key to awareness and change.

We have some of the best and brightest medical doctor’s in the world in this country. Part of this wellness shift should involve new more effective ways to decrease medical malpractice. In our current overpriced, counterproductive, and many times destructive system of malpractice insurance, defensive medicine inhibits the delivery of quality preventative healthcare and change. If we can maximize the doctor-patient relationship and minimize the incidence of litigation, overall wellness goals of our entire system may be achieved.

I think Halbert L. Dunn’s, MD, PhD, definition of wellness is excellent, “High-level wellness is an integrated method of functioning ... oriented toward maximizing the potential of which the individual is capable, within the environment where he is functioning.”