Several Issues in Health Care Paper #1 In the late twentieth century, with m

One of the clearest problems with the rise of malpractice cases has been the translated cost in insurance for the care givers, which is then passed on to the consumer. This is a problem from a sociological perspective because it is clearly the mission of medical personnel to provide aid to others and, as a consequence of the Hippocratic Oath, to give the best health care available.1

Given this, then it is the moral and ethical duty of a health professional to utilize whatever techniques he or she thinks are appropriate in order to save lives. Under the rubric of the medical profession, however, there are certain standards, often referred to as "normal standards of practice." These standards are clinically accepted patterns of care that have been tested and proven to have the highest

1 Larry I. Palmer, Law, Medicine, and Social Justice, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 13435.

On the positive side, these standards of practice are likely to have been those that were taught in medical school, an

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In this paper, however, an alternate approach to health care will be presented, focusing primarily on the way doctors, nurses, hospital staff, insurance companies, the government, and the consumer might respond to a more enlightened system. The basic characteristic of a new health care system is already in place in many areas of the country. In fact, holistic care is becoming quite popular in areas that are affluent enough to understand and participate in a system that treats the "whole" person, as opposed to a system in ____________________ 1 Larry I. Palmer, Law, Medicine, and Social Justice, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 12. which the body is dissected without any concern about diet, lifestyle, mental state, etc. Under a more holistic system, medical care could be broken down into separate facilities depending on the type and seriousness of the ailment. However, that is where the separation would stop. Instead, for instance, of treating a patient for headaches as a disease, headaches would be used as a symptom to determine what other areas of the patient's life might be in conflict. A patient profile could be computer generated for every patient, based on a survey of questions that ask about eating
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Approximate Word count = 1375
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)