Health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies, and many hospitals and clinics are run to make a profit.
This shows how the U.S. healthcare system is so heavily profit driven. It leads to higher costs of healthcare and unequal access, when compared to other countries with public access.
Despite having significant amounts of untapped uranium, crude oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, lumber, and hydropower, the CAR is one of the poorest countries in the world.
I find this interesting, since they have so many natural resources. Resources can also be traded for with money which also makes it more confusing. How can a country with many resources be so poor?
The health care facilities that do exist are typically found only in urban areas, are often very old and lack modern medical technology and sometimes even sanitation.
This shows how unequal access to healthcare is in low income countries. It calls out the gap between rural and urban areas on healthcare. People who don’t live in cities have worse chances, and it makes health outcomes worse overall.
The drug companies do not focus research on or market drugs for conditions that are primarily found in low-income countries, because the anticipated profits are less.
This quote shows how profit does influence what kind of treatments are developed. Diseases that affect poorer populations can be ignored, which causes ethical concerns abou health inequality.
In most recent years, prescription drug payments have increased more than twice as fast as any other type of health expenditure, and more than twice as fast as the overall cost-of-living
This shows how quickly drug costs are rising compared to other expenses in healthcare. It shows that medication are starting to become a very expensive part of overall healthcare costs, and it makes treatment less affordable.
It included proprietary hospitals and nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, home care and emergency room services, renal dialysis units, and a wide variety of other medical care services that had formerly been provided largely by public or private not-for-profit community based institutions or by private physicians in their offices
This shows how healthcare expanded into a large and profit driven industry of many different types of services. Instead of being small, it became more complex. It can make care seem less focused on patients.
anticipated or experienced discrimination has discouraged as many as one in three from seeking care. I
This quote shows how discrimination directly impacts health by preventing people from even getting access to care. It connects social issues with actual medical consequences, mental & physical.
Traditionally, health care providers used a variety of techniques—medical school training, personal experiences, peer consultation, reading medical journals, personal intuition—to develop treatment recommendations. This resulted in considerable variation in treatment plans from physician to physician.
I think that these techniques set up a very good base for physicians, but it does cause a lot of variety which might not always be a good thing. It highlights the idea that care wasn’t consistent, it shows how patient outcomes would depend on which doctor they see. Research based practices became a lot more important after this.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the physician-patient relationship in both positive and negative ways. In a positive way:
This quote sets up the idea that COVID didnt just negatively affect healthcare interactions, but also changed them in positive ways such as telemedicine.
To be health literate, one must be able to navigate the health care system, including filling out complex forms and locating providers and services; share personal information, such as health history, with providers; engage in self-care and chronic disease management; and understand mathematical concepts such as probability and risk.
I feel like this is a really important trait to have to be a well-functioning patient. It doesn’t ask too much, just simple understanding of the healthcare system. If a patient is unaware of their own personal care and needs, they won’t be able to actually recieve the help they need.
The physician represents medical expertise, controls the communication flow between the two parties, and makes all important decisions.
This describes a very physician centered model of care. The patient has barely any input, and it seems to reflect a more traditional and unequal approach. It is different than modern approaches because now, shared decision making is common.
Autonomous individuals are able to make their own choices and decisions and have them respected by others.
This explains how autonomy is a significant ethical idea in healthcare, showing how patients do have the right to make their own decisions. It also implys that physicians shouldn’t override what patients choose to do with their own care, even if they disagree. Respect should be prioritized.
therapeutic communication does not exist in many physician-patient relationships.
This quote puts an emphasis on how there’s a big gap in healthcare. Effective conversation/communication isn’t really practiced, even though it’s important. Open conversations ca be limited by time pressure or certain behaviors.
. CDC workers analyze data to understand disease outbreaks, determine their likely effects on the population, and identify and enact efforts to control or stop them
This shows how data collection is really important in stopping spread of diseases and also protecting public health of the US.
US outbreaks were mostly localized, spreading within unvaccinated subpopulations.
This quote that vaccines don’t only protect people, but also do help to prevent outbreaks in communities.
It decreased from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.0 in 2020, representing the single biggest drop (1.8 years) in LE in the United States since World War II.
This quote really highlights how major events like COVID can quickly reverse improvements made in life expectancy
During the 1960s, British physician Dr Cicely Saunders developed a modern approach to hospice emphasizing professional caregiving and the use of modern pain management techniques to compassionately care for the dying
Once again, it is surprising to me that this important of a healthcare facility was only developed in the mid 1960s. It is so important for people to pass on comfort and I feel like it should’ve been developed more early on.
independent living centers,” in which seniors basically live on their own and care for themselves but have someone to check in on them periodically and provide transportation.
I feel like this is an overseen part of nursing homes, but it is important. It sounds like it is for the elderly that have no one else to care for them and I think it’s important for them to still receive some type of support.
esidential care facilities like nursing homes were first developed in the early 1800s. Prior to then, communities offered only almshouses in which the incapacitated elderly were placed with the homeless, mentally ill, and chronically inebriated.
I find it interesting that nursing homes were developed so early on. Considering the fact that a lot of significant healthacre facilities (such as urgent care centers) were not developed until about the mid 1970s, the development of nursing homes in early 1800s is surprising to me. I also find it very unfair that at some point that a mental hospital and nursing home were all put into one because they both need different treatment.
Developed in the early 1980s to attract patients who need acute episodic care, they are now sometimes viewed as an alternative to the family physician because they offer a stable
I find it odd that urgent care facilities were only developed in the early 1980s. It seems like they should’ve been built earlier due to how they help in emergency situations.
Recent data on US hospitals show two important trends. First, ironically, as the US population has grown in the last 50 years, the number of hospitals and hospital beds has decreased. The number of hospitals in the United States increased each year from the mid-1940s to 1975, when there were 7,156 hospitals. From 1975 to 2019, the number decreased significantly—dropping to a total of 5,534 hospitals in 2018. This decrease occurred especially in the number of rural hospitals and the number of hospitals in the inter-city—both of whom struggled to maintain financial solvency.
This is an issue because for people who live in rural areas. People who live in the “country” often have to drive far to find the closest hospital to them. This is an inconvenience for emergency care.
The first American “hospital” was founded by William Penn in Philadelphia in 1713 primarily as a shelter for the poor
I feel like the fact that the hospital was only used as a shelter for the “poor” shows a lot on how healthcare was back then. Most wealthy people had doctors at their own homes, and they did not have to go to the hospital to receive care. I feel like this is unjust in a way.
Number and Percent of Americans Age 0–64 without Health Insurance
I noticed in the table that in 2015-2017, the percent of uninsured was around 10.5%. It then raised to 11.1 in 2018, 12.1 in 2019, then dipped again in 2020 at 11.1. I wonder what the cause of this was.
For the first time in history, the percentage of Americans who are uninsured has dropped below 10 percent. The number of adults in their early and mid-twenties with health insurance has sharply increased. Much preventive care is now being provided without charge, and more people are receiving preventive services. The cost of prescriptive medications for Medicare enrollees has declined. Individuals with pre-existing conditions are able to access health insurance.
This is a great step for the U.S. because so many people have health issues that they cannot get sorted just because of expensive healthcare. This shows how Ways to get coverage nowadays have increased and more people are able to get help.
Everyone is required to have health insurance (the individual mandate) with financial penalties for those not purchasing insurance. (This has since been eliminated.) Subsidies to enable purchase of health insurance are provided for those with moderate or low income. More people become eligible for Medicaid.
I feel like this rule is very unfair because health insurance alone is expensive, and those who cannot afford it would then have to be punished with more financial penalties. I think it was a good idea to remove this rule.
The overarching goals were to guarantee coverage for most or all people and to do it in such a way as to contain costs—the two massive problems of the health care system. There seemed to be strong support, and there were reasonably cooperative relations between the political parties.
The main goal for healthcare has always been to make it universal yet still respective to countrywide cost. I feel like Obama’s idea of healthcare really made an impact on how healthcare is seen now due to large amounts of support.
Nursing care facilities and continuing care retirement facilities—5 percent.
I find it surprising that only five percent of dollars spent on health goes towards nursing care facilities. I have heard many stories of patients who live in nursing homes being neglected and not treated as well. I feel like a slightly higher percentage should go towards nursing care to better the health of the elderly.
In a Gallup Poll in 2021, 16 percent of Americans viewed the health care system as being in a state of crisis and 56 percent believed it had major problems. Only 3 percent saw no problems.
The statistics state that mostly all of Americans view the healthcare system to have many issues. Population health is a very important part of a nations overall health, and these statistics show that healthcare should be more of a main focus in the U.S., and that the government should prioritize citizen health more.
The US health care system, at its best, is seen as an innovative system that provides excellent medical training, the latest high-technology services, and excellent patient care—all among the world’s finest. At the same time, the US health care system is recognized as being extremely expensive, inefficient and wasteful, grounded in profit making, and leaving millions of Americans without adequate access to basic health care
This shows how health care can be so helpful, yet so corrupted. There are so many different views on healthcare in this country, and it is hard to unite them all as one.
As a caregiver, the nurse functions to meet patients’ needs—dependency (hygiene, nutrition, safety, etc.), comfort (physical and psychological), therapy (medications and other treatments), monitoring (collecting, interpreting, and acting on patient data), and education. As an integrator, the nurse coordinates the contributions of separate medical units in the hospital or clinic to provide total and effective patient treatment and care.
This highlights the extensive work that nurses do. They have to help the patient out while still being kind and caring which is a hard thing to do, since nurses are so overlooked in this society. Nurses are see to be a significant part in care and often do a lot more work than doctors.
Curing became the domain of men (as physicians), while caring was women’s work (as nurses). Altho
This is very contradicting, considering the fact that in order to successfully help a patient, you must both cure and care for them.
others were white women who were paid in kind for their services.
This highlights the discrimination that was placed on people of color during this time. It is unfair that only white women got paid for their services, when women of color performed those same services without compensation.
Medical students have also developed special terms they use among themselves to identify patients whom they perceive as undesirable, such as “gomers” (“get out of my emergency room”—often used to describe patients with poor hygiene, incontinence, habitual malingering, and a tendency to pull out intravenous lines), “crocks,” “dirtballs,” and “brain stem preparations
I think that this is highly inconsiderate. Considering the fact that medical professionals sign up to help people, they shouldn’t be judging the people that need help in different way than others
that is, concern about the patient without excessive emotional involvement or over-identification. It is a “supple balance” of “objectivity and empathy” and “equanimity and compassion” that are combined to enable the “delivery of competent, sagacious, and humane patient care”
Learning how to care for someone while being detached is a very difficult skill. I feel lik a medical professional would have to master this skill in order to be great.
Learning to act in professional ways—especially in communication with patients, in engaging empathetically with patients, and in medical decision-making. This section of the chapter examines two of these important attitude and value transformations—a “tolerance for uncertainty” and “detached concern.”
I feel like this is a very important step in entering the medical field. Medical professionals often have to learn how to not get too personal with patients or else they would get over emotional. Which would make their work harder.
Even after controlling for SES, symptom severity, age, comorbidities, and other medical factors, multiple studies document discrepancies in the types and quality of medical services offered to racial-ethnic minorities across a multitude of conditions (e.g., CVD, cancer, pregnancy and childbirth). Racial-ethnic minorities receive fewer diagnostic tests and less aggressive treatment, and experience longer wait times than whites. For example, an abundance of research shows that treatment differences between Blacks and whites for heart disease lead to higher mortality for Black patients
I think a big part of the reason that racial and think minorities have a different impact on them from diseases is because of the environmental factors placed on them. Access to food, local hospitals, and schools all affects health.
Life expectancy had already declined before the arrival of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020 (Geronimus et al. 2019), and this decline was largely limited to those without a four-year college degree
I find it odd that in order to live a long life, you must have some sort of education. It seems unfair since not everyone has access to high level education.
Of course, the view that the medical marketplace is completely open is inaccurate. Corporations and the government itself have a strong influence on health (e.g., through marketing, sales, or inadequate regulation of health-damaging products such as sugary beverages, cigarettes, pesticides, or guns), and each year corporations or their political action committees make sizeable financial contributions to political candidates in the hopes of influencing government policies relevant to their industry.
I think that it’s surprising that the government does not convene with what is put out there food wise, considering the unhealthy foods nowadays play a large role in health .
Advertisers target children and adolescents with heavy campaigns involving food-related messages, with almost all of these ads featuring junk food. One study found that 34 percent of ads intended for children were for candy and snacks, 29 percent for sugary cereals, 10 percent for beverages, 10 percent for fast food, 4 percent for dairy products, 4 percent for prepared foods, and the rest for breads, pastries, and dine-in restaurants (Kaiser
I noticed that many fast food/snack commercials are mostly targeted to kids. The healthier snacks always seem to be targeted towards adults. I think they do this because kids honestly don’t know anything better, so when they see media that is created for them, they get interest in that. If healthier snacks were promoted in the same way that unhealthy snack as were, I believe kids would enjoy healthy snacks.
Although the United States has the largest proportion of obese persons, the World Health Organization emphasizes that exploding rates of overweight and obesity are a worldwide problem. For example, there are almost 2 billion overweight people in the world, and the percentage of overweight or obese children aged 5–19 years increased four-fold between 1976 and
This is interesting to me because I have always been proposed with the idea that only the U.S. had a problem of obesity. It makes sense that it is a worldwide issue, but media always presents it ias if its simply just the u.s.
For example, men are much more likely than women both to exercise more and to drink immoderately (perhaps reflecting a traditional masculine ethic).
it seems like a lot of people depend on commonly seen gender stereotypes to define healthiness
The individual’s own definition of their health is central (rather than the physician’s), and the definition is stated in positive terms.
The sociological definition of health really seems like the correct way to think about health. It allows an individual to define how they feel themselves.
In reality, medical professionals, the patient, and the patient’s significant others are all involved in the definitional process.
This is important to remember. If a person feels like something is wrong, they should have the right to speak on that and believe in that. Doctors shouldn’t be able to absolutely tell you something isn’t wrong if you feel it.
rather, it is the absence of a negative state—if you’re not sick, you’re well.
I think this is a weird thing to have as a “set” rule in most occasions. A lot of doctors focus on this definition, which leaves a lot of gaps. It seems very simple to just define healthiness as an absence of illness
(3) social movements (e.g., the pro-life and pro-choice movements) that have developed around these ethical issues
Social movements are important to include in medical sociologists work. Since so many people’s opinions differ, medical sociologists need to learn all of these opinions and how they are formed, along with those principles.
Because the factors that lead to degenerative diseases are more obviously tied to social patterns and lifestyle, the necessity for sociological contributions became more apparent.
This shows how important social research is in healthcare. Cause of disease can often be confused, but learning that harmful diseases can be caused by lifestyle is an important find in medical sociology. It teaches people how to treat themselves and how their environments affect them.
As a specialization, medical sociology encompasses a body of knowledge which places health and disease in a social, cultural, and behavioral context.
I like how this explains how medical sociology brings a certain kind of social sense into medicine. Social, cultural, and behavioral aspects are often overseen in healthcare when they can sometimes be the root of medical issues.
We see how the social meanings of COVID-19 differed among groups, with some believing the virus was a hoax, some rejecting masks and vaccines, and others putting their faith in dangerous alternative treatments not endorsed by the medical community
This whole paragraph uses the idea of depiction to emphasize the meaning of “social” in this context. It shows how socially connected COVID was, tying it together with the idea of sociology. This paragraph gives us ideas on how everyone acted differently socially during COVID.