Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Slow Medicine - Victoria Sweet

Victoria Sweet is a doctor who after decades in medicine has written about her reflections on the sort of medicine she has practiced over the years. With more knowledge, more diagnostic tests available and more medications to prescribe, clinicians are often limited to spending 15 minutes to sort out their patients ails. Instead Dr Sweet looks at the time when slow medicine is able to assist patients, to help them heal and get better.

As well as sharing her own story, she starts the story by talking about her father and the treatment he received as a result of 'fast medicine'. The book then is full of her own experiences with many of the patients she has looked after over the years. I could have carried on reading her stories - so I have now got out her first book to read (it is not necessary to read it first).

It is such an important topic for those in the health field. As managers put more pressure on - constantly pressuring us to do more and more with less and less - I think that the effect on the patients is left behind when it should be more of a priority. 4/5

1 comment:

John Bellen said...

Doctors work assembly lines these days, it seems.