What has the military learned about the use of narcotics and other pharmaceuticals for managing chronic pain and PTSD?

Critical Thinking in Health Care

Watch the documentary: Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Health Care. You can stream the movie from Amazon, iTunes or Vudu . You must watch the full 99 minute documentary to complete this assignment.

Answer each of the questions below. Be thorough, specific and accurate in your answers. You must refer to the documentary in your answers. If you use information found in sources besides the documentary, including the text, use in-text citation and a reference page in APA format to reference those sources.

THE PROBLEMS:

• PAYING MORE, GETTING LESS

• 75% of the 2.7 trillion dollars we spend on healthcare in this country is spent on treating diseases that are largely preventable, such as heart disease and diabetes. Why do you think this is happening? What can be done to change this statistic?

• OVERMEDICATION AND OVERTREATMENT

• Why do you think other countries don’t allow advertising for prescription drugs? Why do you think we still do?

• ESCAPE FIRE follows Yvonne Osborne, who has been in treatment for heart disease for over 15 years. What mistakes are noted in her care? What have these mistakes cost in terms of money, risk, and the emotional distress?

• AN ENTRENCHED SYSTEM

• Medical journalist Shannon Brownlee says in the film, “We have a disease-care system, and we have a very profitable disease care system… It doesn’t want you to die and doesn’t want you to get well. It just wants you to keep coming back.” Do you agree with this statement or disagree? Why or why not?

• The film states that the current system provides the wrong incentives for doctors and hospitals, sometimes forcing them to do what is not in their patients’ best interests. How have you seen this in your own experience with our health care system? What can patients and physicians do to change this?

• Why is healthcare such a politically charged issue? Is there any hope that both sides of the aisle can come together to work for change?

THE SOLUTIONS: ESCAPE FIRES

• TREATING THE WHOLE PERSON

• According to the film, why are primary care physicians so important? • What can medical students and nursing students do to change the current state of healthcare?

• PREVENTING DISEASE, ENHANCING WELLNESS

• Roy Litten is a patient in the ER who has had several heart attacks and a stent placed in his heart, but continues to eat eggs and bacon and to smoke. He has stopped taking his medicine because it is too expensive, and he doesn’t have his own doctor; when he started having chest pains he had to resort to going to the ER. What could be done by each of the stakeholders in the healthcare system to help a person like Roy start on the road towards good health? What are the challenges and obstacles in the way?

• Why is Dr. Ornish’s study about the relationship between lifestyle choices, heart disease, and prostate cancer so important? Is this replicable for the general population?

• What do you think of workplace financial health incentive programs like Safeway’s? Should private and public insurance implement similar “behavior as currency” strategies?

• THE MILITARY

• What has the military learned about the use of narcotics and other pharmaceuticals for managing chronic pain and PTSD? What have they learned about the use of integrative medicine in the treatment of chronic pain and PTSD?

• What can the civilian population learn from what the military is doing? How can this knowledge be applied in civilian healthcare?