An experiment in light expression

The NYtimes reported the results of an interesting survey conducted with patients in North America at several top hospitals. The article notes that nationwide 67% patients mentioned they would recommend their institution to friends and relatives. It also notes….“Many patients reported that they had not been treated with courtesy and respect by doctors and nurses; that they had not received adequate pain medication after surgery; and that they did not understand the instructions they received when discharged from the hospital”. 

My personal hospital experiences always involve apprehension (what new papers do i need to fill out before the doctor condescends to see me), a bit of anger at how casually healthcare providers act (inured i’m sure by the sight of the dying day in and day out) and some relief when I leave the place - i almost find myself feeling  better when I leave a crowded, dark, dull hospital and feel the sun and wind on my face outside!

I’ve been coming across this ‘Healthcare experience’ discussion a lot lately. Last month as part of a workshop at IIT Kanpur we gave students the problem of redesigning  the healthcare system at the IIT through technology interventions (most groups came up with hybrid solutions - website and mobile SMS, mobiles and the IIT-wide intercom facility and such). One student group found through their discussions with staff and students at the healthcare center that patients felt doctors were ‘not touching us enough, not talking to us enough, not hearing us intently enough’. I also recall reading in Dan Pink’s Whole New Mind recently that several medical schools in North America have been teaching their students ‘empathy’, ’story telling’, ‘role playing’ and other such softer skills - which sounds like a good move.
I’m still skeptical though - will the medical profession ever embrace an open-source approach towards sharing medical knowledge and conducting treatments? Do they need to?

I live in Bangalore, India, thousands of miles from where the candidates are slugging it out for the 2008 US elections.

However, there is something about the spring-in-his-step, poetic, inspiring, post-partisan and savvy Barack Obama that has made me much more interested in the 2008 US elections than any US election I have followed in the past.

I’d been intrigued about the Obama campaign from the first time I heard him on TV in the Democratic debates in 2007 and read his famous Democratic convention speech. Subsequently, I ended up reading his book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ and was struck by the candidness and broad strokes across topics within the book. I sensed some new directions, some concerns for real issues, and a hope that those issues that impact the future (energy, space exploration, moderation over brinkmanship) might be addressed by this man who seems more open to collaboration and reaching out to the rest of the world than his peers.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on how the Democrats play out the next few months.