Community

Today, we share a community,
Not just a city.
Today we are bound in a common effort,
Not just a common dwelling
We shed common fears
we discard the common desire to retreat from each other
We discard the impulse to meet disagreement with force.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

Stream of Life

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Bankruptcy Secondary to Medical Costs

1981: 8% filing for bankruptcy did so secondary to serious medical problem

2001: 46% filed bankruptcy secondary to medical costs

2007: 62% filed bankruptcy secondary to medical costs

Today’s TV Interview in Seattle

Hello Everyone, It was a GREAT pleasure to present on ‘Medical Miracles and Healthcare Reform” today on TV in Seattle.

Would you all please post to your Facebook accounts, twitter and help to disseminate this important message?

I need your help to construct a culture of heroism in medicine. Take a look

http://www.king5.com/video/in-studio-index.html

Small efforts Count

Of course I would like to be on Oprah. Of course I would like a large national platform to discuss Hope, The Facts and Heroism. Of course I would like to change the very way we think in the medical schools. In Michael Moore’s new movie “Capitalism” it is no fun to hear him say that the “best in Engineering and Science are going into the financial industry and not into things like medicine or things that can be of service to the world”

So,  20 or 30 or 50 at a time, I go around the country to preach my message. “Now is the BEST time to be in medicine! Our income has NEVER been higher. How will YOU make the Art of Medicine better? What disease will YOU cure?”

Sometimes I feel it connects, sometimes I don’t. But don’t think that it is always so euphoric. I CANNOT tell who in the room is being touched. I cannot tell by what they say. In one class everyone is on the ‘Love, Love, Love ” thing, and then I ask the Simple task of ‘Go to Digg and ‘Digg’ the videos so it will get more attention’ and of 250 people maybe TWO do anything.

In another class in New Jersey a quiet Muslim lady with a Hajab, who say not ONE word to me and I think she may HATE my sense of humor arranges for what has been FOUR radio interviews on www.TheBlockRadio.com   with Cassie and Tim who are on their own sincere mission to make the idea of America fullfill its promise as a Great Civilization.

So, who can tell?   The same is true of your efforts in your studies. If your vision of WHAT you are doing medicine FOR is clear and true and beautiful then ALL the efforts, not matter how small will make some difference.

Evidence for the superiority of the current medical student compared to the past

Every bit of objective evidence should convince you that a current medical student is superior to students of the past.

• USMLE Scores 15 years ago were an average of 200, now it is 222
• IQ rises by three points per decade
• Passing rates on Internal Medicine Boards have risen from 75% to over 90%
• Attending Re-certification rates on boards are LOWER than for fresh residents

Would you consider that you, the current student, is the beauty of the world? the ‘Flower’ of your generation? Perhaps there is no one else to save the world, except you. You are intelligent, qualified and capable. You have only to realize that there is NO ONE else who will do these great things such as the cure of autism or diabetes EXCEPT you!

The Patients are coming but the doctors are not!

In a week, I will co-present on “Routine Miracles” with the priest with whom the ideas of the book were developed.

I spoke to dozens of patients last night and every single one of them that is in town will come. They were enthusiastic, grateful for what had been done for them medically and excited to share their stories with others. Ten to twenty of them at minimum will be there.

This was delightful.

I invited all of the physicians and experts who are in the book to celebrate THEIR work, to have them face to face with the grateful appreciation of human beings whose lives they had improved

*Sight to the blind

*Hearing to the deaf

* The dead brought back to life

* The woman with the ‘issue of blood’ stopped

*The orthodox lady whose life is centered on having children, but got incapacitating arrhythmias every time she was pregnant-CURED!!!

Overwhelming,

The Doctors?

Not ONE of them is coming. Most did not even acknowledge the repeated invitation. It is an event for them. To ‘Feel the love’ . Even at its most crass and commercial, it is for THEM to generate referrals for themselves.

No interest. In fact, avoidance.

This is why I wrote ‘Routine Miracles”. There is an emotional disconnect on the part of our faculty, our senior physicians, a hole in their hearts. The patients see what they received as a “miracle’.  “Oh my!!! I would LOVE to come!!!”

The doctors see it as ‘Routine”.

What can we do?

Opening Book presentation!! Sept 10 in NYC!

At 7pm on 59th street and 9th avenue in manhattan will be the opening launch of my attempt to inject the idea of a triumphal optimism into our national healthcare reform debate.

I will be Co-Presenting with Father John Collins, the Paulist priest with whom ‘Routine Miracles” was conceived!

Please come by, and bring your friends. The patients from the book will be there to speak with and share their stories and answer your questions.

Take a look and scroll down to see the  announcement

Home

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Meet the Author and the Priest

Routine Miracles.

Sept.10 7-9 PM

Conrad Fischer, MD and Father John Collins, CSP.

Routine Miracles: Restoring Faith and Hope in  Medicine &

Exploring the Effect of Divine Presence in the Ordinary Events of Life.

” The book was based, for me, on the 10th Chapter of Matthew and chats with John Collins.”

Do NOT spare yourself at this time! Keep working!

Many many of you are finishing your preparations for step 2. I know you are tired,but NOW is not the time to spare yourself!

You will retain what you study, you will get what you desire.

Most of all, our way is a way of sacrifice and baring pain in order to relieve the pain of others. When you study now, when you want to stop and rest, do NOT rest! Each moment of pain you experience is consciously undertaken in an attempt to improve yourself so you are skilled to take care of others.

When you take on this pain, you are helping to dispel the suffering of the world.

Our world’s Civilization and healthcare reform in the United States

Those with illness deserve to be taken care of no matter who they are.

Each life has intrinsic value irregardless of the ability to pay.

No one is in the position to determine that any person’s life is unworthy of the cost of their health.  Even the most reprehensible personalities deserve kindness. Mercy is the only solvent for hatred.

Cost should NOT be the FIRST concern in our debate on healthcare. Life alone, simply being alive,  has greater value than payments. 

In our civilization, the world looks at American values. They can’t avoid it even when they want to. As the leading exporter of movies, TV and entertainment, our cultural values are observed by everyone on this planet.

They are watching us now.

They are watching to see if we,  who rightly so, pride ourselves on fairness, justice, freedom and hope, will make a commodity of our citizens’ lives.

We are under the microscope.

Everytime a fool on TV insists the United States cannot pay for healthcare for its own citizens, we degrade our whole civilization and embarass ourselves in the eyes of the world.

Every time we allow someone to screach hysterically about a non-existent ‘death panel’ or ‘who’s going to pay for this healthcare plan?” we diminish our ability to stand up for what is best in human civilization.

To unleash the explosive creativity of the human spirit and to protect the weak must be the goal of our world’s civilization. 

Every mind in the world can spill into each other with tweets.  Yet, 1000 people a week feel hopeless enough to commit suicide from depression, loneliness and despair

Corn is produced at such velocity and volume that a single country can supply the world, yet 20% of children go to bed hungry each night.

Racial understanding progresses to the point that the most powerful man in the world is an elected black man, yet ethnic tribalism, and  “honor killings” of women exist unregulated. This week’s Journal of the American Medical Association reports a 30% rate of intimate partner violence against women in India.

We are on the cusp. Which shall it be?

Let’s stay on course.

Our moral authority in the world evaporates a little every moment we delay in providing healthcare for all of our citizens. Our political power to stand up against outrages in other countries is lessened.

Today in our country, someone will die of an illness that could have been prevented had they access to care.

When you stand up for universal healthcare, you stand up for a great civilization. When you oppose the histrionic hatred of someone demanding that we show payment before providing help you are protecting everyone in the world.

The world is watching how we treat the most vulnerable in our own society.

The cost of leaving them unprotected far exceeds any dollar amount. We will NEVER be heard when we speak out against a human rights abuse in another country, when we allow the abuse of human rights at home

A day delayed in providing universal coverage is a human rights abuse. The height our civilization can reach is being measured by our action on healthcare reform.