Issues With The Healthcare in The United States Essay Example

The healthcare industry in the United States is, unfortunately, flawed in many ways, but there are pressing issues that require legislation change and require some kind of intervention from the leaders we elect into office. For example, the cost of healthcare is currently unattainably high, forcing people to ration lifesaving medication such as insulin or withholding epi-pens, out of fear of not being able to afford a replacement. An issue like drug prices, which is so widespread, requires legislative change and changes to the infrastructure of our healthcare industry, but that can only be achieved by educating the voting public and electing officials who will make it their priority to ensure no one has to live rationing off medications due to their cost. However, there are issues in our healthcare industry that nurses, physicians and all other staff can directly help improve and those will have direct impacts on the populations they serve. 

An issue, in which I feel I could have a direct impact and one that I have been directly addressing in clinical trials, is working towards educating patients more deeply about their health and helping them differentiate reliable, credible data versus misinformation from unqualified sources. In the age of technology, where everything is a push of a button away, patients, who are not previously educated about their health or how their bodies work, are left at the mercy of the Internet and the mercy of misinformation. The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example of the dangers of the lack of health education and the ceaseless amount of misinformation disseminated through the Internet. In combination, these issues have led towards too many deaths relating to COVID-19, millions infections and low vaccination rates in some states. There are scientists who believe that pandemics, such as COVID-19, will become more frequent which only accentuates the fact that the public needs to be educated, as to be able to differentiate trusted, medical advice from unsubstantiated misinformation. Specifically, minorities and marginalized communities are the ones who suffer the most from lack of education, historically less attention from healthcare workers and less financial resources to be able to seek different opinions, which makes health education all the more important for these communities. 

Working in clinical trials for the last 5 years in Boston has shown me how serious this issue regarding health education and misinformation is; it has also shown me how powerful trusted, reliable knowledge can truly be, especially when it involves health. Specifically, our group enrolled 25 inner city, severe, asthmatic children for a yearlong biologic, immunotherapy trial and one of the hallmarks of the study was monthly Asthma Education. During our asthma education sessions, we would walk parents through Asthma Action Plan, we would address how to administer inhalers using proper technique, we would walk them through IgE results to help better understand their child’s allergic triggers and many more lifesaving subjects. In addition, I would generally explain what happens to their lungs during an asthma attack, how their lungs work and why inhalers are extremely important for their child’s health. Ultimately, parents left these sessions, and left the trial, with a deeper and more in-depth understanding of how asthma works and they gained knowledge that can help them better understand their child’s chronic condition. While difficult and time-consuming, our group found that, over the year, parents were able to treat their child’s asthma at home more effectively and they were able to catch exacerbations earlier to avoid hospitalizations. As a whole, parents felt that the education they received could have helped them in the past to help control their child’s condition and they also felt confident knowing they had all the tools and knowledge to be able to handle a chronic disease, such as asthma. In my experience working with inner city families, there are typically additional struggles and hurdles facing their health and it is even more important to ensure they are given the tools and knowledge to be able to overcome then, as it is essential to their health. Personally, this was one of the most rewarding aspects of our study and it opened my eyes to the great need for more thorough education in our clinics, offices, schools, etc. During this process, I witnessed how truly powerful knowledge can be, as Francis Bacon once said, and I never imagine that knowledge could be lifesaving for some people. Trusted knowledge could have saved many people in this pandemic and it is proof that we have to invest in educating the public about their health, or we will likely see history repeat itself. 

As a future research nurse, I hope to continue educating the communities around me; I hope to give patients the confidence to be able to filter through all the misinformation and to be able to live longer, healthier and more successful lives. I hope, as a whole, the medical community can be one that is more inviting, more patient and more open to educating the public, as we have seen what could happen if we allow for the Internet or unqualified people to educate our patients.