Ever failed to fix someone’s presenting complaint they came in with but they keep coming back? Me too. One especially that comes to mind, from over a decade ago, was someone with alopecia. She’s still in my care. And that’s despite the fact that she never grew thicker hair, as was her express objective at our initial appointment and she’s gone on to develop several other conditions. So who’s at fault? Me? Because I failed to find all the ‘fixes’ – firstly for her alopecia and then because I couldn’t abort everything else that followed? Or her? For rebooking? Which would then naturally fall back on me – for letting her – if indeed it was apparent, that the answers for her were elsewhere.
How we each, individually, think about ‘health’, informs how we set out to care for patients and set up our practice models.
Packages and programs make the case for ‘health’ as a series of discrete challenges. Offering us the option of focussed goal-oriented interventions to produce our desired end-objectives: fitness, weight loss, conception. Apothecaries by providing everyday access to healthcare and medicines with low buy-in barriers, could be said to be more of an acknowledgment of the inescapable and ongoing nature of this very humanising thing we call ‘health’. Shared medical appointments lean away from ‘health’ as something that happens to an individual, which can in turn amplify our sense of isolation, and instead, act to remind us that the struggle to be well is universal and our efforts to overcome our health issues can actually unite us. Practitioners still engaged in General Practice regard ‘health’ as a whole body undertaking and something they’re less able to make sense of when siphoned into disconnected systems. Those identifying as ‘Family focussed – recognise that ‘health’ also expresses itself & may benefit from being assessed & addressed at the level of the ‘household’. If instead, in the one family, ‘she’ sees a women’s health specialist, he, a men’s and their kids each consult with various clinicians, appropriate to their age, stage and particular presentation (skin, mental health etc) – how does the overall ‘health’ of that family fare? Health professionals delivering care in Corporate settings, highlight how our ‘health’ is impacted by the large portion of our lives spent at work and the incredible contribution our daily habits and workplace culture can make. All of these are important. All of these have their place.
All of these are rooted in our own beliefs & framing of ‘health’ combined with our own unique sense of how we can best help.
Which part of the path we can accompany people on, which piece of the puzzle we might facilitate them to solve.
Early in my career I offered a lot of ‘packages’ and I think that was a good fit for me in my 20s when ‘health’ did seem like a series of ‘tests’. Can I make a baby? Can I make enough breastmilk for two?! 😵Can our immune systems cope with all the ‘intruders’ they bring into the home? Can I be well as a working mum? And like all things perhaps, my experiences, & therefore the way I individually conceptualise ‘health’ continued to undergo adjustments. So too my sense of what ‘health’ hand-holding we need and what kind contribution I can make to that. So back to the story of the patient who keeps seeing me even though I wasn’t able to solve the very thing she first came in for. For 15 years, she has valued me as a reliable source of information. She has seen me as part of her team, not operating independently of the other healthcare providers she’s supported by. I collaborate and refer for things beyond my scope. She understands I am here for the long game, for the unmasking that ageing does to all of us. I am here as long as she will have me, for as long as she sees herself as ‘better’ for me, just ‘healthier’ because I am here.
I’ve been seeing my long-standing (suffering😅) psychologist for about 8 years now and she’s yet to cure my primary concern.
But my internal (& therefore also external) life now, compared with before, is so different, vastly improved, by and large as a result of having her on my team.
Having had this experience as a patient helped me again to see the enormous value this practice model of continuity of care offers. And I hear that echoed by others. Some practitioners speak to now having supported 3-4 generations even within the one family! Accompanied often by, ‘What a privilege! What an honour!’. I feel the same way about my own enduring patient relationships. It turns out, I’ve sat on both sides of this therapeutic equation then. I wonder if you have too?
Photo by Tiana Sinclair on Unsplash
Top 3* Qs I get
*that aren’t about Iron
How did you do all that? Often coupled with a statement like ‘You were a machine!’ No, just a woman with no lamps and no life. If this makes you most concerned about my ongoing ambient lighting options – rest assured – I am lamped to the max now. But at my peak level of productivity I just couldn’t run the risk of getting sleepy after I put the kids to bed because I still had several hours of work to put in at the computer…true.
‘What are you doing now with all that extra time?’ Ok let’s be clear, ‘extra time’ is an illusion! But in addition to more time under lamplight, in short, when I wrapped up Group Mentoring I turned to my kids and said, “I want to be of service – that’s my next chapter’. After momentarily toying with an OS post with Medicins Sans Frontieres or similar, I instead found my vollie roles a little closer to home. I support several new mums with their babies (hardly selfless when cuddles are involved) and am an occasional extra-hand with my local Landcare. I also undertook training in Last Aid – yes think the opposite of First Aid (kinda) – it’s about being death-informed and able to support people through their palliative process & also beyond it. It was phenomenal. I intend to share about this in-depth in our upcoming conversations via The Curious Minds Club (CMC).
‘What’s next?’ Well the CMC is a new initiative I’m really inspired about and I hope you are too. I’ve already shared some reasons why I think we all need this right now- a place where we can think out loud together. Have the conversations that aren’t happening elsewhere – because others can’t or won’t. But what else is up next? Well I wish I knew! Because just as I didn’t anticipate or entirely plan my exit from running the ANS, or delivering education for several institutions, or Group Mentoring – I have instead listened very much to my gut about when it’s time to ‘make a move’ – and it seems this little corner of the internet is next 😉
