PBS: Evaluating Health Care Systems

Hopefully, in the future, Orthodox Christians will focus their skills and resources to establish truly Orthodox health care organizations and institutions. 


PBS has aired two programs, both hosted by coorespondent T.R. Reid, relevant to improving the U.S. Health Care System. Perhaps we can learn principles from these successful models to aid the effective implementation of health care systems or the establishment of Orthodox medical institutions. The most recent is Health Care: The Good News: "Correspondent T.R. Reid profiles doctors and hospitals all over the U.S. that are finding ways to cut health care costs while still providing excellent care. The documentary looks at several low-cost, high-quality regions to find out how they do it."  (http://video.pbs.org/video/2198039605/)

Another program is the FRONTLINE documentary, Sick Around the World: "In Sick Around the World, FRONTLINE teams up with veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid to find out how five other capitalist democracies -- the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland -- deliver health care, and what the United States might learn from their successes and their failures." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/view/#morelink)

Photo from the National Institute of Health.  Public Domain.

An Orthodox University

The September 2011 edition of The Word, a publication of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, includes an article on Orthodox higher education by His Grace Bishop THOMAS of the Diocese of Charleston, Oakland, and the Mid-Atlantic.  Both the establishment of Orthodox schools and the establishment of Orthodox medical facilities involve forming a truly Orthodox institution that exists within the Mystery of the Church and that operates according the Orthodox ethos as an oasis in a secular culture.  I highly recommend the article, "An Orthodox University: Higher Education for Orthodox Christians," which begins on page 26 of the magazine.

"Doctor as Renegade" (MN Public Radio)

A great article and video about medical care is available on the Minnesota Public Radio website.  Dr. Susan Rutten Wasson, a physician in private practice, doesn't accept medical insurance.  She does accept cash payment and non-monetary reimbursement from her patients.

In order for Orthodox Christian physicians to provide the best medical care possible according to Orthodox Tradition, they must not allow insurance companies, government reimbursement programs, or secular administrative structures negatively affect the quality of care they offer their patients.  The option of accepting cash reimbursement, but not insurance, is worth considering when constructing a plan to launch an Orthodox Christian medical facility, whether a group or private practice.

Family life and patient care may be simpler and better off the insurance grid.

The Emergence of Local Orthodox Christian Societies in America

An article entitled "The Emergence of Local Orthodox Christian Societies in America" has been published on the website of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.  The article, which I co-authored, pertains to health care in the context of the Orthodox Christian community.  One section specifically addresses medical care, but all aspects of a local Orthodox society are interconnected and relevant to personal health.

UPDATE (2/2010): "The Emergence of Local Orthodox Christian Societies in America" has been published in the February 2010 issue of The Word (Magazine).

Orthodox Christian Medical Care in the Eastern Roman Empire

“From their origins in the fourth century until 1453 Byzantine hospitals were conceived as expressions of Christian charity. They carried out in the real world the orthodox doctrine regarding philanthropic medicine. When Basil the Great opened his extensive charitable institution—his ptochotropheion—outside Caesarea, he saw its medical services as the deepest possible expressions of philanthropia. As Greagory of Nazianz phrased it, one could see there love put to the test in their treatment of disease. John Chrysostom built his hospitals in Constantinople 'for the glory of Christ' and staffed them with ascetics who viewed their service to the sick as a religious duty. Sampson, the legendary physician of the Eastern capital, founded his hospital on the principles of the physicians’ profession and on the divine laws which Christ laid down. Even after Justinian introduced the archiatroi of the ancient pagan profession in the Christian xenones, a step which encouraged lay professionals to enter hospital service at all levels on the staff, the religious mission of the nosokomeion was never forgotten. When, about 800, Theodore Stoudites described a large nosokomeion with a complete staff of physicians and nurses, he emphasized that all the doctors from the chief physicians to the practical nurses strove to follow the divine plan of philanthropia. When John II Komnenos established the Pantokrator Xenon in the twelfth century, he prayed that it would always be a fountain of mercy, a refuge for men and women, a pure offering to the Lord. Moreover, John hoped that the philanthropia which he displayed in founding this hospital would attain for him the forgiveness of his many sins. The emperor also reminded the physicians, medical assistants (hypourgoi), and servants of the Pantokrator that they should never neglect patients, since Christ, the Creator of All, considered these sick his beloved brethren. Thus, John wanted the monks and the lay staff of the Pantokrator complex to care not only for the buildings he had built—the lifeless temples—but especially for the patients of the hospital—the living temples of God.”

Note: Philanthopia – “love toward mankind”

Source: Timothy S. Miller, The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 61-62.

(The image is a copy of the Hippocratic Oath from the Byzantine Empire.)