When I was a medical student in 80s a friend of mine who studied Philosophy at that time, always quoted a message from one of the Greek ancient philosophers about “Physicians”, the quote was something like: The “mean Docs” want people sick to make more money. This quote always leads me to avoid being a “mean Doc” so for making more money wish to see more sick people around. Of course, I know a meaningful number of physicians, who dedicate their lives and scarify their family time to help people around the world, with all respect to these colleagues and this important job, I chose to be more active in the field of public health rather than medicine, so why I did that.
Medicine targets individuals to diagnose disease and offer medical treatments to relieve symptoms and if it is possible, to cure. Physicians see individuals who have access to medical care, so what about the rest who don’t have access, how we can reach to these people, how we can make sure those people who suffer actually have any access, dealing with this kind of problems in a population framework comes as a matter of public health mission. Under public health umbrella you have this chance to address these issues in a population based paradigm.
Public health seeks to understand the conditions necessary for well being. Public health not only tries to understand these conditions but also tries to deliver interventions to address the issues. Public health is practice based knowledge, it is complicated, it is difficult to address, it is a multidimensional knowledge, and it is really a multi disciplinary field. Public health professionals believe that the population’s health condition deeply affected by social, economic, cultural and political context in which people live. Public health is a matter of human right, justice, and equity and it is all about change. Public health scholars or activists have a common desire and it is change. Changing from current status to a better condition with less suffer and pain.
I love to be in this field, the field of challenge and change. It is difficult and innovative field. I remember when I visited Lahore in Pakistan; I went to visit the Alameh Iqbal Lahoori’s tomb, a politician and a poet who wrote poems in Persian. There was a meaningful poem on the wall of his tomb.He says “The meaning of human is innovation, since moon and sun do their job as they did for years”. I am in this field to make a difference and serve marginalize and vulnerable folks, I hope I can.
There are several programs that are available to help those without any type of health insurance at all. They are limited in what they cover such as prescription medications and I have found one program that actually has negotiated rates for both prescription medications and over 1,700 lab & imaging preventative diagnostic tests. Pretty amazing program as no one ever pays a dime to access the huge savings that the program offers.
It’s not publicly known information. The media won’t publicize it. Big money keeps it shut down. We are reaching folks, just not at the level we would like to be reaching them.