Contrary to what you have been told, smoking is NOT the cause of all the problems on Earth. Though popular belief blames smoking for everything from halitosis to inflation, I think it's evil has been unfairly notarized.
If you want to pick out today's Big Bad Wolf, in my opinion, it would be poor communication. I should point out that I had an English professor that once wrote on one of my papers to never write "In my opinion". He said it weakened my argument and I should just come out and say what I mean. I guess that was
his opinion.
IMO. That's the first problem. For the longest time, I read that as Eemoe, and had no idea what it meant. Why ? Because I am a GROWN UP. Now that sounds rude, right? That's because I am typing and you cannot hear my tone of voice or see my gestures. So much can be misinterpreted by the written word. By GROWN UP, I actually mean OLD. OLD-Once Loved Disco, Yeah, THAT Old.
Language barriers resulting from a variety of differences in our backgrounds is one part of the problem.
Communication or the lack thereof becomes particularly problemsome in our relationships. Whether it be with our partners, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, or our business associates you can rest assure when problems arise there has been a breakdown in the line of communication.
Honest and direct communication is another part of the problem as is follow through with communication.
Remember the telephone game as a kid? Well, perhaps the people that Once Loved Disco do. The message you start to relay is seldom the message received after it is exchanged through many parties. I would say today that many messages seldom reach their final destination.
Our messages get lost in an ocean of other messages and never seen or heard from again.
Our Institutions illustrate this on a grand scale from Education to Government, to Every Industry including Healthcare.
When I gave birth to Mando, I was on emergency medical leave from Grad School. I was going to be a social worker at the time. A professor from my school called to check-in on me. I spewed my frustration of the current management of both Mine and my baby's healthcare. I was new to the game then and I was astounded. The professor told me that the way that our healthcare system is run results in the fatalities that would be the equivalent of a major plane crash every day of the year. Completely unacceptable and completely avoidable...The culprit..NOT CIGARETTES.Communication errors. I don't know if it was fact or his opinion...but I believed him.
When Mando and I arrive at Boston on Tuesday for our surgical clearance from the pediatric pulmonary department everything would have been just dandy except for the complete breakdown in...you got it...communication.
I had spent numerous phone calls arranging a prior approval and secured a number to call to ensure all testing needed at the visit would be included on that approval. When I arrived the approval was canceled, the insurance company listed wasn't mine, the wrong primary care doctor was listed, as well as the wrong referring doctor. None of the chest x-rays or ct scans were sent from the oncologist's either. When Boston tried to call the insurance company and the oncologist they got answering machines.
Mando could not have his airway clearance test done nor any other tests for that matter. We drove 3 hours to one of the best pulmonologists in the nation at the number one leading children's hospital and were stopped dead in our tracks because messages didn't get through.
I wasn't even angry. This has become so commonplace its cliche.
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| Mando awaiting surgical clearance |
We have the latest technology. The brightest and best educated. The best medicines and the advanced research. Yet we can't get a fax sent or a phone answered.
Hate the smokers if you will but if you really want to save lives lets all learn how to fix this blatant ongoing communication problem. IMO, of course.
Breathe a little easier.
