Preventative Medicine

David Goese

"Preventative medicine" is the health field dedicated to reducing the incidence of disease for our patients. There are more people now than ever who are obese, have heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic, preventable health conditions. In other words, preventative medicine isn't working. It is one of my life goals to join the many, many smart and talented people who together are on a quest to make prevention effective. When viewed through a social entrepreneurial mindset, solving problems of health requires a deep understanding of the role of social determinants of health in terms of the health processes they encourage or discourage. One of the primary goals in a social entrepreneurial venture would be to understand the target market and the problem, including their nuances, well. Social justice would place the venture in a place that experiences health problems the worst. In the last week, SSP has convinced me of the importance of knowing one's community well in terms of the quest for developing positive, active preventative health.

The modern field of medicine is highly specialized. Those who do not specialize practice as primary care physicians, but even these nonspecialists still tend to have certain areas in which they are more proficient. My thought now is that there is not enough medical emphasis on prevention in terms of resources spent. Why is it that we don't do preventative medicine well? Part of it--as noted through my experiences in SSP this past week--is that we as medical schools and doctors do not truly get to know our patients well.

I realized this after talking with community members earlier this week. On a walking tour with Mr. Sam Binion, a figure of public trust, a community activist, and a friend of the neighborhood, we heard from community members what some of their own problems were. A few things made this special. The neighborhood people, as an extension of trust toward Mr. Binion, opened up to us. This doesn't often happen as powerfully as it did for us on Thursday. We connected relatively well granted the short time scale and scope of contact with the community (note: I don't know if that's for sure how it was interpreted by the community members, but that's how I felt). What I found fascinating was that much--perhaps almost all--of the information I deemed "important to health" came from conversations outside what is normally considered part of normal conversation of doctors.  I could see that spending more time with community members, one would be able to understand how to most effectively recommend to them how to stay healthy.

What we learn about in academia is informed by research. This is extremely important. However, in the context of community health, health care disparities, and preventative medicine, what we know and what we learn from research is fatally incomplete. For those doctors being trained in preventative health and community health, there should be an opportunity in the training period for a semi-structured learning experience outside the university, and outside of academia, out in the community, and outside of being in the doctor's office. I'd argue that the more background, the better in terms of thinking of preventative medicine solutions.

We have the opportunity for more conversations with community members in the SSP program. This is the first true week of the summer, and we have grazed the surface of some community health issues, and it has been transformational. I am unbelievably excited to delve deeper and learn about how we can encourage people in the Greater Grand Crossing community to live at peak health and avoid disease.