Another year is coming to an end. We have a new government and soon in the Region Lombardythe most populous in Italy, there will be a new administration.
As for the healthcare lights and shadows continue to cover the sky.
2023 will bring us, for example, the extension for just one more year of one of the positive things that the pandemic had introduced. There dematerialization of the electronic prescription which prevented us from going to the general practitioner during the black period. The recipe came to us, after hours of waiting on the phone to get it prescribed, delivered by mail. But Big Ben said stop, as the legendary Enzo Tortora said in his Portobello.
And I will also be able to accept it, if this was taken as the starting point for a true reconstruction of local medicine, to make it a cornerstone of our health care. But we all need to be available or at least start building a path together that leads to real change only in favor of citizens.
In medicine we don’t need heroes or “slackers” but only people present when needed. But they must be helped to always be present and available.
History Health it could be the basis for having a truly updated medical record available in a subjective way anywhere in the world where there is internet. The general practitioner would no longer have to rewrite anything and this would greatly reduce the therapies, at least chronic, those that are always the same. The system would block the possibility of collecting the product in the pharmacy at the choice of the general practitioner for the necessary checks. Therefore, the end-of-year closure of the prescription sent via email should be considered, if replaced by History Health, as a step forward.
But the important step forward would be the real transition from basic medicine to medicine of the territory. As I have been saying for years, in my opinion, general practitioners should no longer be privately accredited, but public in local departments always available 24/7 on a shift basis. The real doctor, who no longer writes, or rewrites, only recipes, aided by the introduction of subjective electronic supports such as History Health, but a doctor who visits only and who uses all the hospital departments to arrive at a diagnosis and medical therapy or surgical. Of course community housesislands in the desert!
Then the general practitioner, who becomes a local doctor in the hospital, will be able to practice his private profession, if he wishes, in his office.
All this could also start from a university revolution. Today, to be a general practitioner, you need to have a degree in medicine and have followed a three-year regional course. I believe that basic medicine can have a real renewal if you start right from the studies. If I had the power to propose, I would propose an actual detachment from medical school, as was the case years ago for dentistryand I would build a new faculty of basic medicine, after having in any case liberalized access given that the selection will be natural course after course.
Five specific years with the basic notions of first aid, which also contain those of emergency room, with the final destination of a recruitment in accredited public or private hospitals. An important salary for the presence and the first filter that diverts to specialist doctors, colleagues in adjacent departments, after having carried out investigations useful for a diagnosis as quickly as possible. For the benefit of the citizen only.
Soon a new year will begin, we could hope for a new world full of good ideas. Even if we have to wait for a new course, let’s not waste any more time so that it improves as soon as possible.
I am sure that many 2023 high school graduates would choose to approach medicine in this new way, thinking of it again as a life missiona coherent choice to really help others.