"Escape Fire: The fight to rescue American healthcare"
The questions below should be answered completely and carefully. Refer to the 'Escape Fire Bb Upload' document for statistics and other information which may help you to formulate your answers.
THE FILM
1. Why is the film called ESCAPE FIRE?
2. How is the idea of an "escape fire" a metaphor for the message in the film?
THE PROBLEMS:
Paying more, getting less
3. 75% of the 2.7 trillion dollars we spend on healthcare in the U.S. is spent on treating diseases that are largely preventable, such as heart disease and diabetes. Why do you think this is happening?
4. What can be done to change this statistic?
Overmedication and Overtreatment
5. What are some of the problems that arise for both patient and doctor when medical care is highly specialized?
6. Why do you think other countries do not allow advertising for prescription drugs?
7. Why do you think that we do allow advertising for prescription drugs?
ESCAPE FIRE follows Yvonne Osborne who has been in treatment for heart disease for many years.
8. What mistakes were made in her care?
9. What have these mistakes cost in terms of money, risk, and emotional distress?
An Entrenched System
10. Medical journalist Shannon Brownlee says in the film, "We have a disease-care system, and we have a very profitable disease-care system...It doesn't want you to die and doesn't want you to get well; it just wants you to keep coming back." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Explain your opinion - why or why not?
11. The film states that the current system provides the wrong incentives for doctors and hospitals, sometimes forcing them to do what is not in their patients' best interests. What can patients and physicians do to change this?
Treating the Whole Person
12. According to the film, why are primary care physicians so important?
13. Dr. Weil states that western medicine focuses on "getting rid of the bad, not supporting the good" in our bodies. How can we do more to support the good?
14. How can the healthcare system support the good? (look at policy, budgeting, personnel and other issues).
Preventing Disease, Enhancing Wellness
15. Why is Dr. Ornish's study about the relationship between lifestyle choices, heart disease, and prostate cancer so important?
16. Can it be replicated for the general population? Describe how a community hospital could provide such a service.
17. What do you think of a financial health incentive program like Safeway's?
18. How can private and public insurance implement similar "behavior as currency" strategies?
19. Should they implement such policies, why or why not?
The Military
20. What has the military learned about the use of integrative medicine in the treatment of chronic pain and PTSD?
21. What can civilian hospitals and doctors learn from what the military is doing?
Summary
22. What have you learned in this film that may change your perspective concerning healthcare in America?
23. What ideas might you take with you as you enter a career in healthcare?