THE MEDICAL RENAISSANCE GROUP

The Medical Renaissance Group aims to create a revolution in Health Care.

It comprises three groups: 1) Doctors 2) Other health professionals 3) The Public.

The group encompasses the entire medical profession, including doctors, nurses, conventional health professionals, and complimentary health practitioners. For too long, the public has remained in blissful ignorance of what really goes on in the medical system, and blindly accepts it when relatives and loved-ones die of preventable diseases and iatrogenic illnesses.

Our aim is to bring together "round tables" of, respectively, doctors, nurses, complimentary practitioners and above all else, the community, to give first-hand accounts of what is actually happening, in order to pin-point the major problems in our Health System. We then intend to prepare reports, which we wish to publicise and present to the government and the public.

We expect some of the following problems to be pinpointed:

1. The lack of information to the community on basic healthcare and self-help.

2. The lack of education of doctors - especially proper nutritional education at medical school.

3. The inability of GPs within the current Health System to spend adequate time with patients, or have the opportunity to delegate and integrate medical information or liaise with other health providers.

4. The inhumanity of hospitals, with dehumanised and sometimes appalling conditions in which the patients are institutionalised and treated like objects rather than human beings.

5. The general lack of compassion, real healing or nurturing in doctors and nurses, especially in hospitals and nursing homes where patients are drugged up in order to palliate the pain and depression which are often caused by the very modalities that are meant to treat them.

The health system functions as an anonymous, alienating machine, in which the hospital is structured like a factory, and its aim is to be as economically viable as it possibly can be, without any kind of relevance to healing in the absolute sense.

Added to this confusion are the statistics which show that 16% of patients who enter hospital come out either worse or do not come out at all because they have died (Australia). This is often due to error of various kinds, either of the hospital or of the treatment given by the doctor. This however, is politely swept under the carpet as "just one of those things".

The Medical Renaissance Group aims to lobby for a form of medicine, which is integrative, health-giving, and extends to individuals the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives and the opportunity to arrest the development of degenerative disease or to prevent it altogether.

The General Practitioner is the primary gateway to all medical and community services, including specialists, hospitals, pathology laboratories and imaging facilities, and yet the status of GPs in society is diminishing and they are not adequately remunerated for their responsibility. General practice is one of the most scrutinized professions in the world, restricted in protocol and mandated to supply pharmaceutical drugs. GPs are in an unenviable situation. They are generalist specialists with an enormous range of knowledge in all spheres of medicine and yet are not appreciated for this. They are prone to an increased morbidity and mortality compared with all other professions. The Medical Renaissance Group wishes to address these issues.

GPs have a tremendous and wide responsibility towards the healing of the community. Unfortunately, the value and status of general practitioners in society are diminishing. The GP has become the poorly paid servant of either the government or corporatised business. So many GP's in our society are tired, overworked and underpaid, and if they see a carrot on a stick, such as a corporatised offer, they may often jump at it with scant regard for the consequences.

DOCTORS AND NURSES

GP's and nurses are under an enormous amount of stress. If the system is putting stress on doctors, it is almost certainly putting stress on patients (National Centre for Epidemiology and Population ANU). Sadly, these days, doctors are increasingly practicing defensive medicine, rather than healing medicine. The high levels of medical insurance are an indictment on a society, which seeks more and more for litigation.

A major purpose of the Medical Renaissance Group is the care of doctors and nurses, not only by lobbying for more equitable financial remuneration, but also by giving them individual support for the stresses they are under and by encouraging a wider role in contributing towards political, socio-economic, and environmental reforms in health care.

The Medical Renaissance Group sees the plight of the healer as being tied up with the plight of the patient. It sees the patient as being not only the individual in the consulting room but also society and our environment.

TARGETS FOR DOCTORS

1. To gain recognition for GPs so that they be recognized as "specialists in primary care" - the conductors of the primary care orchestra.

2. To extend the initial consultation. The initial consultation should be a long consultation and should be rewarded appropriately. The cornerstone of primary healthcare is the doctor-patient relationship and an extended initial consultation would enhance this.

3. To lobby for greater freedom and greater remuneration for GPs

4. To give the primary care physician a more fundamental role in the development of the future course of primary healthcare.

5. To promote a hospital culture, which is based on healing, nutrition, and nurturing rather than compartmentalization, specialisation and dehumanization, where collateral damage in terms of iatrogenic disease is considered to be unavoidable.

6. To promote an overall holistic view of medicine within the context of mind, body, nutritional and environmental medicine, placing an emphasis on preventative care and lifestyle changes.

7. To lobby for "a new medicine", an integrated health system which is based on communication between all specialties of doctors as well as other health professionals, with the prime aim of giving members of the public the opportunity to heal themselves by using the latest understanding of body - mind medicine, psychoneuroimmunology, nutritional, environmental and preventive medicine as well as accessing the very best of complementary medicine. There is a need to change attitudes and mindset so that we have healing in the broadest possible sense, not only of the individual, but also of society, and the environment.

8. To create public awareness about the pros and cons of the current medical system, based on the biomedical model and the need for a more inclusive form of medicine, which enables people to take more responsibility for their illnesses and also prevent degenerative disease.

It is the general practitioner who should be intimately involved in parameters of health defined by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion from which has been derived the World Health Authority objectives Health for All by the Year 2000. This includes; promotion of healthy lifestyles, prevention of preventable disease, increasing rehabilitation and community health services.

COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

It is primarily for the sake of the community that the Medical Renaissance Group has come into being, Our aim is to provide the community with the best possible medical treatment without having to wait unreasonable periods for emergency treatment, or settle for undignified or degrading treatment by the health system. A healthy culture requires the individual patient to be treated with dignity and respect. This compassionate rapport also enhances cure.

Tabs need to be kept on all the errors that are made. The exploitation of technological and pharmaceutical medicine for the sake of making profits should be deplored.

We also need to educate the public in iatrogenic illnesses that result from, not only pharmaceutical drugs, but also from surgical and diagnostic procedures and chemotherapy. This is where the alternative or complimentary aspects of medicine are so important. We wish to educate the public in these areas and also teach it to take responsibility for their own well being as well as the prevention and cure of illness.

In this respect, our aim is to educate the public in three aspects of healing; namely, mind, body and spirit. The Medical Renaissance Group will support this process by organizing lectures, workshops and seminars, and by providing leaflets and publications. We will look at allergies and health. We will teach people about nutrition and how they can use food as medicine and how they can create a health enhancing environment rather than a toxic one.

We also wish to look at the current health system and how it can be improved to enhance the healing process. Not only are warm, friendly and reassuring doctors more likely to contribute to their patients' cures than their more distant colleagues (Lancet 2001; 357; 757-762), but another study has also shown that emergency department patients appeared to attend less often when assigned compassionate rather standard care.

Due to the current system, our patients have very little time to talk about their problems. There are inordinately long waiting periods in the casualties departments, and, when in hospital, patients are subject to dehumanised medicine where they are often treated with technological efficiency but no real humanity. There is very little feedback given to GP's regarding patient care in hospitals, and this is particularly applicable to private hospitals. Because of the nature of medical training it is difficult for specialists to become involved with the wider social implications of illness for an individual patient.

The community needs to recognise that there is, an epidemic of degenerative and stress related diseases and that illnesses can be prevented and that health can be enhanced. This type of public education can save the nation billions of dollars.

We propose that the GP act as the conductor of the orchestra of primary care, that extended consultations be allowed to enable the doctor to deal with overall care, nutrition, lifestyle, prevention of illness and the management and treatment of stress and depression. We encourage their consultation with human services, developing patterns of liaison, meetings and exchange of patient data, networking with centres and colleges of learning, appropriate organisations and WHO (World Health Organisation) in order that GP education will cover a complete spectrum of healing dealing with integrated medicine, mind/body medicine, psychoneuroimmunology, nutritional and environmental medicine, epidemiological medicine, functional medicine, and human ecology.

We warmly support and applaud the work of the Campaign for Truth in Medicine in assisting us in achieving the above goals.
The Medical Renaissance Group
If you are interested in knowing more about this group, please e-mail them at: mindquest@ozemail.com.au