The Practice of Peace - Last month's OS in San Francisco (long)

[Douglas D. Germann, Sr.]

Lisa--

The sponsor so far is the senior living facility. This is one of those
places which is apartments with a high level of services--change bed linens
once a week, provide some activities in house, meals in a restaurant-type
setting, some transportation services. Not a nursing home, nor even
assisted living: the people here all can live alone and take care of
themselves, and come and go a lot.

They have noticed that when people go to the doctor, they often come back
worse than when they went, and they seem to have to wait longer in doctors'
waiting rooms than younger people.

What they are hearing from doctors is that the patient could not identify
any definable problem, so we saw no reason to change medicines or
treatment, or we tried this or that.

My contact thinks one answer would be for people to hear what doctors need,
and another might be to develop a list of symptoms and questions before
they go to the doctor. Sounded like a good place for Open Space to me, so I
suggested it.

It seems to me a title of What are the issues and opportunities for
improving health (or healthcare) for seniors? might be a good one.

Her fear is that the doctors and nurses might be reluctant to commit to
more than one meeting. My thought is that when they see the magic of
talking with people, they will want to come. And of course, whoever
comes....

I fear the idea of having one group set the agenda for another may be an
effort of controlling, which might scuttle the later sessions. How do you
think this might be approached more openly?

                              :-Doug. Germann

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