I've Never Felt The Need To.....

A phrase that always rings alarm bells for us as clinicians is “ I’ve never felt the need to”. If you’ve ever caught yourself saying that phrase before then this blog is for you. 

The phrase itself is not the concern, what that phrase says about your mentality and health beliefs however is. Let me explain, there are two types of health care: Pathogenic health care and Salutogenic healthcare. 

Pathogenic healthcare is keeping you alive. It’s moving away from bad, not to be good, but instead not to be bad. You’ll definitely find this type of healthcare in the NHS, and in a large majority of private healthcare practices. Phrases you’ll want to look out for as a client or patient are “wear and tear”, “I’ve seen worse” or “not too bad”. Minimising language can indicate a pathogenic practitioner. This is a perfectly acceptable type of healthcare in the eyes of society, but if you're the type of person who has a car MOT and wants the list of advisors done early because they don't want to run the risk of blowing a flat tire that was okay 6 months ago. Or someone who services their vehicle in October ready for winter, then you might want to consider a different healthcare approach.

If you’re one of those types of people mentioned above then look no further. Salutogenic healthcare is true health care, not like pathogenic sick care. Salutogenic care aims to always promote health and constantly aim to move closer to it. Not settling for being middle of the road, or someone who says “there’s people worse than me”. It’s also important not to get this style of healthcare with being the best in the room, instead it’s being the best, healthiest version of you. People with a salutogenic approach to health care dont sit and wait for “bad things to happen to them”, they work proactively instead of reactively and make sure they do their level best to minimise the risk. Separating fault and responsibility is key here. We can’t stop ourselves from being hurt entirely, if a car wants to vere off and strikes us down. it will. Yes it's morbid but there’s nothing we can do about it, it’s not our fault. However it is our responsibility to ensure that aside from unsuspecting injury, we are doing all that we can to mitigate risk and be as healthy as possible. 

To use another car analogy. If you were to get your car serviced every October for 10 years, at £100 a year that's a total of £1000. We will never know whether those services have helped your car to run better, more efficiently and cleaner, potentially stopping your DPF filter from clogging or bearings from going. But we do know you’ve given your car every chance, and potentially saved yourself the miether of breaking down, spending more in repair fees and an unnecessary day off. Who knows, that £1000 over 10 years may make no difference at all and all that “bad luck” and breakdowns may happen anyway in that case your £1000 worse off. But at least you tried. I know which side I’d prefer to be one. Especially when changing a car's DPF filter is a lot easier than replacing the equivalent in our bodies .