This or that

This was part of a long drive conversation with DW. I have worked in two healthcare models, one of the developed world, and another barely sufficing to meet needs of the developing ( whatever that word means) world. We manage to scrape the surface back home. Manage the one single basic issue really well. But if anything is screwed, complications arise, or things become more complex than diagnosis and treatment of one issue, we step back, become fatalistic and let things take a natural course.

Which is not to say that the plentiful bounteous healthcare dollars available to the American healthcare system have created a mannaland here. Problems of treating a populace that expects too much, and believes itself to be immortal, and a force ready to appease this hunger, are not easy to solve. You would say, what's wrong with that? This is an individualistic society that values the achiever who pushes his chances to the maximum, be that his fight with fence sitters, backscratchers, depression or pesky irritants that threaten his longevity. But, do we need a geriatrician to tell us that one day it is going to all end, and to accept this is not a defeat of the generation?

Are we then better off in the developing world setting, where too much healthcare has not intruded itself into interfering with the daily issues of life, or becoming a part of it? After all, would I care what goes into the making of my TV as long as I am able to watch stuff on it? Or is that a sense of acceptance that since we cannot shape our lives with the limited monies and resources we have, we have to accept what life deals to us, be that the fatal realizations of the frailties of our own bodies?

To be truthful, I do not know. If it were me, I would want the best, ain't I? But, are the countless visits to the doctor's, tests, venepunctures everyday, some numbers thrown against my profile, pills, chills and psychic overkills really the best? I cannot seem to decide without a P<0.05