Having now attended 4 of the 6.5 days of the Harvard Internal Medicine Update CME I am now more grateful for being here. The first day of talks was disappointing, with some of the presenters actually pretty much reading their notes word for word, which I could have done in the comfort of my own home. But many of the speakers since then have been more confident and have been speaking from their hearts and their experience and there has been more to think about. Yesterday Deepak Chopra gave a special 2 hour lecture about the meaning of life which was quite moving. He is a physician turned writer, though reading his biography it looks like he was always destined to do things that didn't fit comfortably into the medical profession. He started as a medical student in India, went on to become an endocrinologist, was involved in Transcendental Meditation and was a follower of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, learned Ayurvedic medicine and now is able to span the gap between alternative medicine, ...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.