What I Am All About

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

MYTHOMANIA

How can we stay sane in a sociopathic society? How do we create a sane, empowering society when we ourselves have disordered personalities? I try to answer these questions in my newest book Mythomania: A Psychodrama. Think of it as a Prequel to My Worst Thanksgiving Ever since I describe the forces that conspired against me to destroy my clinic, finances, reputation, and eventually my marriage. Are you curious about how Angie ever got to the point where she thought that convincing the U.S. embassy in Nicaragua to abduct Ben away from me was a good idea? Worse yet, that she truly believed what she did was the only right thing to do?

I use Dr. M. Scott Peck's classic People of the Lie as a framework for my book. 30 years ago he tried to marry psychiatry with religion in an attempt to heal not only broken lives but also a broken society. In essence, what happened to me before the events of that Thanksgiving weekend was my own personal My Lai.

While there is precious little hope for People of the Lie, I do believe that we can take measures at all levels towards healing ourselves and our country. At the end of the book I offer a "Treatment Plan" with several suggestions that I feel are necessary for this process to be successful. Once again, enjoy and learn!

Thursday, August 25, 2016

BAREFOOT DOCTORS

Coming off of the success of launching my newest book My Worst Thanksgiving Ever, I went back to my previous publications and decided to edit and republish my pamphlet Barefoot Doctors. I updated the links, wrote a new Introduction, and generally cleaned it up by getting rid of obsolete references. I also increased the font size a little in concession to my aging eyes.

Although it has been almost three years since I first published it, we have made very little headway getting the concepts and proposals into practice. That is largely due to the powers-that-be but I am partly to blame. Such grand schemes take effort and time and I have had precious little of both. The full text is available on Amazon for $2.99 but I would like to include snippets on this blog every now and then. Please feel free to leave constructive comments below.

THE PROBLEM
How to ensure that isolated populations receive NECESSARY medical assistance, with an adequate supply of dietary supplements that improve nutritional outcomes of these populations
I would like to address these issues directly but am convinced that eventually all answers need to be integrated together in order to produce a quality, self-sustaining health care model for underserved areas of the world (“USAW”). My current focus will be on Nicaragua for several reasons. Firstly, I live here and while I am not an expert on all aspects of their health care system, I do have an acquaintance with and an appreciation for it.
Secondly, Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (behind Haiti). I do not present my ideas to “show them what is good for them” but rather as an attempt to have this country become a role-model for others; in other words, to be an inspiration.
Thirdly, Spanish is the third most frequent first-language in the world, behind English and Mandarin Chinese. Many of my ideas would not need to be translated to have their most profound effects although my goal is to make this model accessible to all USAW’s.
The question I am addressing is composed of two parts. The first is to ensure that isolated populations receive quality health care. This means adequate primary health care. This issue was addressed by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1965 and is the inspiration for my proposal:
“In the 1930s, the Rural Reconstruction Movement had pioneered village health workers trained in basic health as part of a coordinated system, and there had been provincial experiments after 1949, but after Mao Zedong's healthcare speech in 1965 the concept was developed and institutionalized. In his speech, Mao Zedong criticized the urban bias of the medical system of the time, and called for a system with greater focus on the well-being of the rural population. China's health policy changed quickly after this speech and in 1968, the barefoot doctors program became integrated into national policy. These programs were called "rural cooperative medical systems" (RCMS) and strove to include community participation with the rural provision of health services.”
--From Wikipedia “Barefoot Doctors” (1)
The success of the Barefoot Doctors program inspired the World Health Organization to hold a conference in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in 1978 where the Alma Ata Declaration was signed unanimously. The declaration addressed several attitude changes that challenged the existing Western-based models (2). Specifically, it called for
1.      local communities participating in deciding health care priorities
2.      an emphasis on primary health care and preventive medicine, and
3.      sought to link medicine with trade, economics, industry, rural politics and other political and social areas.
The second part of the question is concerned with getting vitamins and minerals to these isolated communities. For clarity’s sake, I assume that this is an attempt to integrate preventive medicine measures into this health care model. This issue was not directly addressed by Chairman Mao nor by the WHO participants at Alma Alta but appears to be covered under their emphases on primary and preventive care. If this is a training issue for health care workers, we can integrate it into their education. If it is a matter of logistics, that would be covered under the “supply chain” question and will not be addressed here (although I have my own ideas about that, too).
The Barefoot Doctors died when China changed course and started emphasizing small, family-based businesses as its model for economic sustainability. Ironically, several thousand of the providers who were trained as Barefoot Doctors eventually went on to medical school and became licensed physicians. This is not a bad ending to the story: just one that was unexpected.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

How to Think Like a Doctor

My flagship book How to Think Like a Doctor is available as a free Kindle eBook for the next five days. It really is amazing: there are more than 10,000 copies out there. Keep the ball rolling. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle Reader to any PC, tablet, iPod, or smartphone. I personally have over 1400 eBooks and about 1200 were free.

The following excerpt is from the Preface:

I came to Nicaragua originally to teach medical English to Nicaraguan medical students and intended to use this version as their textbook. My eventual goal is to revive Chairman Mao’s concept of Barefoot Doctors and make quality medical and health care available to underserved areas of the world. It is not only a dream of mine but is the logical follow-up to my first non-profit endeavor The Medicine Cabinet, with which we collected, repackaged, and sent medications and medical equipment to areas of need. Our first shipment was sent to the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire in 1994 and was one of the first humanitarian projects to arrive there since the tragedy was not recognized as a humanitarian crisis by developed nations for several months.


The world desperately needs kind, compassionate, and capable health care workers. Ironically (and sadly), this is the polar opposite of what is happening in the United States now where a “good doctor” is now defined by how quickly he or she charts. I personally do not want to go to the grave with the epitaph “Here lies Michael Mangold, a good doctor because he charted on time.”


Lastly, a portion of the proceeds from the sales of this book will help fund the Barefoot Doctors Project, Nicaragua.

Mangold MD, Michael. How To Think Like a Doctor (A Quiet Revolution) (Kindle Locations 15-21).  Kindle Edition