Week Nine’s theme, “Health Care: Reform and Innovation,” will undoubtedly feature talk about health care policies, models, policies for models and models for policies. And appropriately so — Chautauquans can’t sustain a real discussion on health care if they don’t explore the nitty-gritty of how it is being implemented.
Sickness within the health care system doesn’t stay inside the walls of a patient’s room, said Dr. Stephen Sagar. The entire system is ill, and Sagar believes the cause is a lack of compassion.
Sagar, a radiation oncologist and professor of oncology at Canada’s McMaster University, will speak at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy in an Interfaith Lecture on the spiritual malaise plaguing health care systems.
Not in his wildest dreams did Richard Gilfillan hope to see the likes of the Affordable Care Act. By addressing issues in the health care insurance marketplace as well as in delivery systems, the Affordable Care Act exceeded the expectations of Gilfillan and many other health care professionals.
In fact, Gilfillan left his position as head of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, where he worked for three years, this past June, citing a curiosity to explore the multitude of opportunities produced by the Affordable Care Act.
As a cardiologist, Dr. Steven J. Corwin values his experience caring for patients and tries to understand what patients are going through.
“I have been fortunate to bring that background to running a large mission,” he said. “We try to look at the whole comprehensive picture across the board. We have to put the patient first and be really committed to that. We can’t cure everybody, but we can care in a responsible way.”
When charting the course of human medical evolution, it becomes evident that progress throughout the past century has been nothing less than remarkable.
About 25,000 years ago, the life expectancy of a human was 25 years, said Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine and previous provost of Harvard University. By 1900, that number had risen to 48 in the United States, and today, U.S. residents are expected to live until the age of 78.
To tackle an issue as prodigious as the state of health care in America, Chautauqua Institution has committed to a three-year forum in which health care will be explored in great length, beginning this week and continuing in Week Nine of 2014 and again in 2015. Fortunately, the Institution has help in this huge undertaking. The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine will serve as presenting sponsor of the health care forum this week and through 2015, and Independent Health, an insurance provider located in Buffalo, N.Y., will be this week’s supporting sponsor.
Harvey Fineberg thinks the Affordable Care Act is a significant step in the right direction of health care reform, but he feels it doesn’t do enough to address the need for better care at an affordable cost.
Fineberg serves as president of the Institute of Medicine, an independent organization that provides unbiased advice on issues in biomedical science, medicine and health. He will speak at today’s 10:45 a.m. morning lecture in the Amphitheater on three issues he feels the United States must address to create a “culture of health.”
When he was first invited to speak at Chautauqua during the Week Seven Interfaith Lecture Series, Daniel C. Maguire was offended.
“When the Chautauqua people decided to have a session on cheating, I was the first person they thought of,” Maguire said to his audience in the Hall of Philosophy. “I, as a cheater, don’t feel very lonely here. The more I look around, the more cheaters, I see. I think this is a veritable cheating convention.”
Wednesday, Maguire continued the week’s religion theme of “Creating Cultures of Honor and Integrity,” with a 2 p.m. lecture titled, “The Loneliness of the Truth Teller.” Maguire, a professor of moral theological ethics at Marquette University, focused on the human drive to ignore truth. He also discussed three channels that allow for hope: stories, shock therapy and humor.
The Chautauquan Daily 