Makes sense to me. An obvious problem with rural areas, with crappy transportation, is the folks in them don't walk nearly enough. Let 'em get off their asses!
An obvious problem with rural areas, with crappy transportation, is that people have no place to walk to, and unlike urban areas, the purpose of walking is, more often than not, the walking itself.
-- ACS
Linda, when you can't find anyone to do a colonoscopy on you, it's probably not because you don't walk very much. Health is a lot bigger than how much you walk. (I can't believe I have to say that!) I actually count myself really lucky that I found a specialist in demyelinating diseases within a two hours' drive. I also have an excellent GP, which makes me a very lucky ruralish patient.
When was the last time you thought it was a constructive use of your time to walk two miles to get someplace? Walking takes a really long time, and when you live three miles out of town, you can't really use it as transportation. Also, if you live in North Idaho, 2/3 of the year it's cold and dark during non-working hours.
Sara, I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear. I thought McCain's point was stupid, and people in areas w/no good transportation probably walk plenty without his encouragement. But I've never lived in a rural area, and I don't know much about it.
Sara, what do you see as the solution for retaining providers in lower-pay settings (it's a problem for rural areas, but also Community Health Centers, Military settings and primary care in general)?
I think that making a clearer path to medical school for people interested in medicine but who start out in nursing or other allied health fields would make sense to me. There are many people out there who would make great physicians but the resources needed to attend medical school overwhelm them.
I would love to be a primary care physician as a next career, but there's no clear path for someone of my age -- and who needs to support a family while I'm gaining the prerequisites and attending school.
An investment in med students who commit to staying in a rural or lower paying setting for 5 or more years makes sense to me. It would also increase the number of physicians who actually come from the backgrounds of those they are serving -- rather than someone who has never before lived in a rural area, or who can't speak the same language as the patients she is seeing.
Sorry, I see you proposed a similar solution -- I think recruitment probably needs to start prior to med school, though. (I'm in Washington State, although on the Western side).
Also, "wellness" is never a substitute for actual health care. (Duh.) The idea that if we all just walked more or took "Shaq's Challenge," we wouldn't need health care is pure privillege talking. Come to think of it, John McCain would certainly not be walking around today without the outstanding medical treatments he's received.
The only thing that makes sense to me as a solution to the health care mess is to take the ability to make a profit out of the system. Whether government or nonprofit run, a health system that provides care, not insurance, is what is needed, and would be a great deal more affordable and accessible than what we currently have.
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