Primary Health! Now from Circulo

BLUF – in October, Circulo acquired my little company, Huddle Health. We are now fully integrated into Circulo – and it’s time to describe the rationale for our convergence and some of what comes next. If you haven’t read my short essay on Primary Health, please go read that first.  We’ll wait. — Ok … back?  Great.  Now, let’s resume the story.   Years ago, I was on the faculty at Albany Medical College. We had a course called Health, Care & Society wherein students were challenged to learn and think about ethical issues, health policy principles and engaged in conversations on the role of medical providers in our communities. It was a “soft” class that many students seemed to feel was peripheral to what they would do as physicians. They didn’t take the course as seriously as biochemistry, pharmacology, or anatomy. And this is a symptom of our problem. Physicians are taught medicine – not health.  This is why it’s called medical school and not health school.  Our training prepares us well to diagnose problems, respond to those in need, order testing and treatments, prescribe medications and other therapeutics.  Notice that much of what we are doing is reactive – focused on managing illness rather than optimizing health. Over the last few decades, we’ve marketed medical services as the center of our communities’ health lives.  But medical services are not the c...
Source: Docnotes - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs