Bedside Manners

The state of health care in the US is one of my biggest concerns about the future. There are so many problems with unrealistic costs for medical care, with uneven coverage, with overly prescribed  medications and tests...I have no idea how this system can ever be fixed. I don't know much about socialized medicine and I'm sure there are many problems with that too. I just know things have to change somehow, because it can't go on the way it currently is.

I stumbled across an interesting website dedicated to medical teaching course in the UK. These are designed to provide physicians and other levels of medical personnel with teaching techniques -actually a teach the teacher course. Additionally, there was a medical management course to provide the business type skills physicians need to manage their practices, and a consultant interview course for training in presenting your best face at an interview.

Whether or not we have these types of courses in the US, it seems important to recognize that the medical profession has become more business oriented than service oriented. More and more often I hear of people being denied medical care because their insurance companies won't cover the cost. My cousin is a case in a point- a young man in his 30's who requires an intricate bone transplant, but was forced to wait for 12 months because he had exceeded his benefits. These are 12 months he must remain in pain and out of work because he wasn't able to have the surgery at an opportune time.

People here express fears about "death panels" that might arise under some of the new health care bills. Believe me, they're already here. They masquerade as health insurance companies, who really dictate almost everything about your medical care. That is, unless you're independently wealthy and can afford to pay for prestigious "concierge care" - in essence, a personal physician who is at your beck and call.

Where all this will end really frightens me. I wish that something as simple as medical teaching courses could be a solution.

But I'm afraid it will require something much more drastic than that.

 

Day 2: Believe

Until you actually believe you are a writer, you’re only kidding yourself. 

from 15 Habits of Great Writers, Day 2

Saying it is one thing. Doing it is another.

Yesterday, I was bold enough to declare my identity as a writer. I was brash enough to say that I’ve been a writer for the past 45 years of my life. I insinuated that I was sure of my writerhood, confident in my ability whether or not the world agreed with me.

But do I believe it?

Saying it is one thing, doing it another.

Years ago I was in behavioral therapy for depression. My therapist, a very wise woman, encouraged me to start acting as if I weren’t depressed. At first, she said, it will feel like the biggest lie you’ve ever perpetrated on yourself. You’ll feel fake and uncomfortable.

In time, you will start to believe this trick you’ve been playing on your psyche. What was once a difficult acting job will become  like second nature. Eventually you’ll realize that you aren’t acting the role of a happier person, you really are a happier person.

Believing in ourselves as writers requires a similar slight-of-mind trickery. Sending the declaration out into the universe is the first step. Doing something about it another. Here’s today’s challenge from the 15 Habits of Great Writers:

Just so you don’t think this is all esoteric, you’re going to do something radical. You’re going to get up two hours early and write.

If you usually get up at seven, get up at five. If five, then three. You get the idea. Don’t check your email or read blogs. Just write. This is how you know you really believe something. Thinking and talking and tweeting about writing is one thing; actually doing it is another. So today, believe it; tomorrow, do it.

Great writers believe in themselves. And when that crazy self-doubt slips in - when the right words won’t come, when the rejections pour in, when the naysayers say - they shove it all back into the corner where it belongs. Sometimes, they pretend it never existed. Everyday they do things that reinforce that belief in themselves.

They believe.

So - I’m game if you are. Tomorrow, up at 5:00 a.m.  Nothing but writing. And believing.

Day 1: Declare

BE A WRITER, the magazine ad screamed at me. JOIN THE FAMOUS WRITERS SCHOOL AND LEARN FROM SOME OF TODAYS WELL KNOWN AUTHORS. MAIL THIS POSTAGE PAID CARD FOR A COPY OF OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST. That ad appeared in every issue of my mother’s Look Magazine. After staring at it and re-reading it month after month, I finally screwed up the courage to submit the card.

It was 1967. I was eleven years old.

Nevermind.

I was a writer. I wanted to learn from the best, and that certainly wasn’t Mrs. McLean, my high-strung, frizzy haired fifth grade teacher. Why shouldn’t I apply for the famous writers school? Let them teach me what I needed to know so I could become famous too.

The aptitude test came, an 8 1/2" x 11” bound paper booklet in which I was to handwrite the answers. (Luckily, my cursive had improved since my third grade teacher, the equally frizzy haired Mrs. Simons, had given me a C in penmanship.) My favorite question was the last - write a descriptive paragraph that will leave the reader feeling a strong emotion.

I titled my paragraph “The Black Room,” and began it with the parenthetical statement that it was “from one of my works.”  In the paragraph, I remember writing about a “narrow room filled with grim shadows” where “only the sensation of evil lurked."

I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I wasn’t accepted into the Famous Writer’s School. However, the Famous Writer who was randomly assigned my aptitude test (and I can’t even recall that Famous Writer’s name) was extremely kind. He/she actually scored my test, and gave me some helpful hints about writing before letting me down very easily.

“Rebecca, you obviously have writing talent,” he scrawled in blue ink, “but unfortunately our students must be at least 18 years of age. Please do try again when you’re older."

I was surprised, but I wasn’t crushed. I would just keep writing, adding to my “works” until I was 18 and then reapply.

Didn’t matter.

I was a writer anyway. And I wasn’t afraid to declare it to those Famous Writers.

Know what?

It’s 45 years later and although I never was admitted to the Famous Writers School, I’m still a writer.

I tell the world I’m a writer every time I hit publish on a blog post, or mail a submission to a magazine or send in a completed technical report to my office. I tell myself  I’m a writer even more often - every time I make notes in my journal, or do research for an essay, or write lists of names for characters.

I declare my writerhood every time I transfer the thoughts from my head into words on a page.

Like I’m doing right now.

I’m a writer. Are you?

 DECLARE your writerhood. It’s one of the 15 Habits of Great Writers, and I’m joining Jeff Goins and over 500 other writers in exploring every one over the course of the next 15 days.

Weekending

Nothing about the weekend went quite as planned. Instead of church on Sunday morning, I ended up in the Veterinary Urgent Care with Magic, who was poorly all week long, despite a visit to our regular vet on Thursday. If you know me, you know my dogs are like my children (just more furry) and if they’re sick the rest of the world has to wait.

Magic is almost 10 years old, so when a dog reaches that stage of life, illnesses can be serious, even fatal. As I said tearfully to my mother yesterday morning when he seemed so ill, “I cannot lose one of my dogs right now. I simply cannot bear that."

I practically wore out a set of Dell laptop batteries searching through veterinary websites. I slept badly, knowing we would be going back to our regular vet today, knew we would be doing X-rays, perhaps other diagnostic tests. NOT knowing what we would find.

But preparing myself for the worst.

That is SO typical of me, expecting the worst in every outcome. When I woke up this morning, I practically had my little dog dead and buried.

I can write this now because it turns out there is nothing seriously wrong - a slight case of bronchitis, and a really bad case of “angry, inflamed gas” (in the words of my vet, the inimitable Dr. Kimberly Anderson). He now has medication for both and already seems much calmer and more comfortable.

Of course, somewhere in the back of my mind the qualifying words “this time” rise up to taunt me. He is almost 10 years old. We’ll be lucky to have him five more years.

And we all know how fast years fly.

But I’m desperately trying to pull myself back from that abyss tonight, and focus on the week ahead. We’re traveling on Wednesday to see The Magnificient Mister Connor, whom I hear has two teeth, loves to eat things that are yellow (as in bananas, butternut squash, and mangos), and pants like a dog when he gets excited.

Now I can hardly wait to see all that - and more.

Stay tuned, because next weekend will definitely be worth writing about.

How was your weekend? I hope it was a little bit less stressful than mine.