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The Medical Side

The Medical Side

Last updated on: March 18, 2024 at 9:33 am by Juliana M. Cobb, RN, BSN, BSB

The Medical Side 2024-03-18T09:33:29-04:00 Juliana M. Cobb, RN, BSN, BSB

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Brief Introduction to the Medical Side of A Nurse’s Heart

I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to the second half of A Nurse’s Heart. I simply cannot concentrate on just the differences between the mind, body and soul. As a nurse, I care deeply about my patient’s physical health. That is the main focus of my nursing practice.

My Focus

Unlike healthcare websites, I plan on concentrating on walking you through making decisions based on health conditions and how those health conditions affect your life. You will find more information on how healthcare professionals think, what decision-making processes they go through before suggesting treatments, understand how the body interacts with each other and how you can develop a way to assess what treatment options are best for you.

Treatment for any healthcare condition always has many parts to it. Medication, lifestyle changes, testing, seeing specialists and mindset all go into a treatment plan. No one thing takes care of any type of health issue.

A Brief History Lesson

Typhoid Medic

Harris & Ewing Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My grandparents grew up in an era of rapid medical breakthroughs. These continued their whole life. My parents, and I, also saw great advances in healthcare. The miracles of having ways to prevent large numbers of people from dying young, turning fatal infections into easily treatable diseases, and understanding how the different body parts function together leaped forward in great bounds.

Unfortunately, preventative medicine has been largely ignored by those outside of the medical community. It is hard to think about doing the right thing when you are healthy and you know that almost any issue you develop can be treated by modern medicine. Too often we take risks and ignore advice to care for ourselves before we get sick. Even healthcare professionals fall into this trap.

We have seen the repercussions of this as long-term health conditions, formerly associated with the elderly, are being seen in younger and younger patients. Now, instead of living long healthy lives and then getting sick and dying when they are very old, some patients spend the majority of their lives being sick.

Keeping People Healthy

Fresh Air

Fresh Air Logo Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Healthcare professionals believe in preventative medicine and constantly work with their patients to encourage them to care for their health. It is an uphill battle, the majority of money comes from sick care, not well care. Providers only spend maybe an hour with their healthy patients every year. That is not enough time to educate them on all the ways to stay healthy, how to avoid falling into schemes that will actually hurt their health and how to evaluate what things are best for their health.

Add into this mix the past several years. The Covid pandemic has seen a rise in mistrust of science and scientists. While there were certainly many mistakes made on the part of those in charge, lots of misinformation and suppression of information and the lost opportunity to show how science is done, that does not mean science facts are false. It’s how you use those facts and present them to others or twist them to fit what they want you to believe.

The goal of those healthcare professionals who worked directly with patients was to prevent both illnesses in people and protect a failing healthcare system. Unlike what most people believe, the majority of doctors do not get large kickbacks from the government or healthcare corporations. They are independent thinkers who want to be shown the science and use their critical thinking skills to apply that knowledge to each individual patient.

What to Expect From Me

God made everyone’s body similar enough to everyone else’s, thankfully, to make it so that there are common treatments for most conditions. However, God also made everyone’s body individually. Many things go into making you who you are. This necessitates an individual treatment plan for each person. This also means there will be some trial and error as you find out what works best for you.

This is why you work with a specific healthcare provider. That supplement that helped your friend feel better may not work for you. Working with your provider, who knows you and knows the science and treatment plants, allows you to make wise decisions based on you and your health.

There are basic things every person should be doing to keep themselves healthy – exercising regularly, eating healthy, drinking water, spending time on keeping mentally healthy, etc. You will find me talking about these things. I will also talk about other health conditions and medications, among other things.

Most importantly, I will help you to think through what is happening to your body, what your goal is for treatment and how to merge your personal beliefs with your healthcare decisions.

As David says in the Psalms, we are all:

“fearfully and wonderfully made”

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