Lessons my vacation taught me about preventative care

Summer vacation This summer many travelers have faced hours of delays, cancelled transportation and lost luggage. Despite threats of a strike looming just days before my vacation, VIA Rail provided surprisingly reliable travel to a nearby city. My vacation was much anticipated, as it was only the second time I’ve taken time off since the pandemic began. Although travel to my destination wasn’t a problem, travel within the city became one. I was staying in a residential area, a long walk up a steep hill from the closest public transit station. It wasn’t convenient to take transit regularly, especially during a heat wave, with daytime temperatures reaching 30° C. My partner and I had access to an old family car, but it had pre-existing problems. Only having owned a car briefly many years ago, I was ignorant about what could go wrong. Heart health To start with, there was the car battery. I thought of the battery like the human heart. We were told that the battery had to be recharged on a nightly basis to get the car started. This might be similar to the medications that patients with heart failure take to keep their tickers ticking. We wondered why, if the car battery was in such bad shape, it had not been replaced? We agreed to follow the procedure of charging the battery before use, yet didn’t anticipate the consequence of missing one nightly charge. The next afternoon, the car battery died. Ironically, it occurred just after I had brunch with a friend who had lost her husband to a sudden heart attack. Part of our conversation had been around the importance of preventative care. Had her husband been more vigilant about his own care, could his death have been preventable? Maybe or maybe not. In contrast, sudden car battery death could have been avoided. We waited over an hour for roadside assistance to arrive and another hour for the battery to be replaced. I was disappointed that my afternoon plans were derailed. Unfortunately, this was not the end of my story. Chronic disease Despite sporting its new organ, the car still gave off warning signs of underlying chronic disease. The car was noisy and the sound seemed to be worsening. There was a known problem with the muffler. My partner mentioned this issue and suggested that action be taken, but he was ignored. How many times do we as providers and our patients ignore the warning signals that our bodies send us? For example, when I started running, I was oblivious to my body’s warnings of injury and continued running until walking became painful. Then I’d stop and seek medical attention. So reactive! More recently, I’ve become more proactive, noticing when an injury is looming and rest before it worsens. Read: Pharmacists with big ideas—it never gets old If only we'd listened to the warning signals that the car was giving us and taken proactive steps to repair it. One afternoon, on our way to lunch, the unmistakable sound of the car’s muffler hitting the pavement rattled us. My partner pulled over immediately to take a look. Sure enough, the muffler was hanging dangerously close to the ground. Hitting one pothole might be enough to knock it off completely. We jumped on our phones, searching “muffler repair near me” and called a few places. Eventually, we found a place that would accept us if we arrived before their cut-off time. What followed was a painfully slow drive in the right lane with the car’s warning lights on. Many of us and our patients take a similar approach to health. For example, they might ignore stomach pain until it’s so bad that they can no longer eat normally. Or they avoid getting vaccinated until they develop the disease, then ask about whether vaccination is an option. How might we as providers, shift our culture from its obsessive focus on reactive care to take a more proactive approach? I was happy to read the Pharmacy Practice + Business article highlighting Simplicity Wellness, an organization co-founded by pharmacists and completely focused on preventative care. We need more such organizations and providers with the courage to embrace prevention over treatment. Surgery Returning to our slow drive across the city to the muffler repair shop, what should’ve taken 30 minutes, took over an hour. Upon arrival, our car was placed in a queue; we were told the wait for a diagnosis and quote would be about 45 minutes. We resigned ourselves to waiting in the parking area with little shade from the intense heat. The 45-minute wait stretched to an hour and 45 minutes. This is similar to our healthcare system, with its ever-expanding wait times. Knowing what to expect can help ease anxiety around waiting; however, when expectations are not even close to what was promised, it’s almost better not knowing! The environment of the garage was an uncomfortable waiting room, despite obvious efforts to make it more inviting. There were a couple of chairs just inside the garage where one client per car could sit. There was one screen mounted high displaying the news. We discovered that they accepted cash only, no matter the size of the job. Our car’s diagnosis was dire—the entire muffler system would have to be replaced. I thought of this like a cancerous colon that needed removal. The repair would cost a significant sum of cash that we were not carrying. We were directed to the local bank. This all sounded sketchy to me! We were reassured following my partner’s conversation with another patron, who said this was one of the best muffler repair shops in the city. After returning from the bank with the cash, we were told that the repair would be about 45 minutes. This time, I knew to expect a much longer wait! We passed the time watching the car’s surgery with fascination. About 1.5 hours later, our car was released from surgery. It drove almost silently now. Focus on preventative care The entire experience frustrated me. We had spent over eight hours on the car’s issues during our vacation. If only we had the foresight to repair the muffler before the problem worsened. If only we listened to our bodies and took care of them with adequate sleep, diet and exercise before disease develops. Would muffler mechanics be out of jobs? Would healthcare providers? I don’t think so. There’s always a role for repair and treatment. However, preventative care shifts some of the strain on our current systems. Those mechanics worked 1.5 hours overtime to repair our car, their final job of the day. Similarly, providers often work overtime to respond to the increasing burden on our healthcare system, contributing to burnout. The next time your car or body is giving you warning signals, I suggest that you stop and listen to it. Be proactive and encourage your patients to do so as well. Let’s all work on shifting our culture towards preventative care. Our cars, bodies and systems of care will thank us.

Lessons my vacation taught me about preventative care

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