Quote addressing the causes of illness
An excellent quote I found in my class reading of Public Health and health care systems and policies
A CASE FOR REFOCUSSING UPSTREAM: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ILLNESS
by John B. McKinlay
My friend, Irving Zola, relates the story of a physician trying to explain the dilemmas of the modern practice of medicine:
“You know,” he said, “sometimes it feels like this. There I am standing by the shore of a swiftly flowing river and I hear the cry of a drowning man. So I jump into the river, put my arms around him, pull him to shore and apply artificial respiration. Just when he begins to breathe, there is another cry for help. So I jump into the river, reach him, pull him to shore, apply artificial respiration, and then just as he begins to breathe, another cry for help. So back in the river again, reaching, pulling, applying, breathing and then another yell. Again and again, without end, goes the sequence. You know, I am so busy jumping in, pulling them to shore, applying artificial respiration, that I have no time to see who the hell is upstream pushing them all in.”
Source: I.K. Zola, “Helping Does It Matter: The Problems and Prospects of Mutual Aid Groups,” Addressed to the United Ostomy Association, 1970
Printed in: The Sociology of Health & Illness: Critical Perspectives, Seventh Edition, by Peter Conrad, p 551
Sulayman
sooo true. treating the symptoms, ignoring the cause.
safeya said this on January 24, 2009 at 12:53 am