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Values in Aging Newsletter Sept. 1, 2003 From the International Longevity Center-USA H.R. Moody, Editor ==================================================== IN THIS ISSUE - From the Editor: Ethics & Aging - Web Sites to See - Teaching Gerontology - Reminiscence and Telling Stories - Conscious Aging Audio Tapes - Books of Interest - Calendar of Events - Self-Knowledge: Meeting the Shadow xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx From the Editor (HRM) "Ethics & Aging: Scandals Here and Abroad" This past month has witnessed scandals revealing a lapse in ethical behavior fatal to older people both in the U.S. and abroad: SCANDAL IN OVERTREATMENT. In August, Tenet Healthcare, America's second largest for-profit hospital chain, agreed to reimburse the federal government $ 54 million to settle accusations of Medicare fraud. Tenet's hospital in Redding, California, has been the target of a lawsuit alleging that doctors performed unnecessary heart surgery on 366 patients, including country music star Merle Haggard. The suit accuses Tenet and its doctors of fraud and elder abuse, contending that patients died from unneeded operations performed under Medicare reimbursement. In agreeing to settle with the government, Tenet did not admit wrongdoing. But the health care company still faces ongoing probes by the U.S. Department of Justice for fraud and other violations. In addition, federal investigators are exploring why the huge health care chain has been collecting higher-than-average Medicare reimbursements in recent years. A subscriber to this newsletter, Larry Polivka, Director of the Florida Aging Policy Exchange Center in Tampa, wrote to condemn "the loss of 'soul' in contemporary healthcare." Polivka pointed to "Tenet's policy of routinely cracking open chests when there was no medical reason to do so-- another breathtaking sign of the moral bankruptcy of U.S. healthcare and the business that runs it. Only money and profits matter." Was the Tenet scandal just one rotten apple in the barrel? Maybe not. We have learned about hidden dangers of hysterectomies, currently done in the U.S. at a rate four times that in comparable countries. Doctors will admit that reimbursement favors surgery instead of other approaches to treat problems for which hysterectomies are routinely recommended. For more on the Tenet Healthcare story, see: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/Tenet2002story.html SCANDAL IN NEGLECT. This past month, France reported a wave of higher-than-normal deaths, chiefly among older people, during a heat wave across Europe. The number of deaths was estimated at 10,000, perhaps more. What accounts for this staggering death toll? Elders, it is argued, were more likely to die because they were more vulnerable to heat or lived alone. But other factors may also be at work. Dr. Francoise Forette, Director of the International Longevity Center in France, said "There is a sort of indifference to the problem of old age... Indifference in the face of a revolution in longevity." Other analysts pointed to Spain and Italy, asking whether higher French death rates were partly the result of reporting methods. How, after all, do we know if someone died of a heat wave, or of 'old age,' or of something else? The scale of the problem may be larger than we have imagined. For more on the high death rate among older people from the heat wave in France, see: http://www.globalaging.org/health/world/heatwave.htm For more on Francoise Forette's thoughts on of "Aging Without Ageism," see: http://www.asaging.org/at/at-221/World.html SILENCE AND INVISIBILITY. What do these two stories have in common? The Tenet scandal is a result of silence on the part of people who knew, including clinicians and regulators alike. The second story, the heat wave in France, shows the price of invisibility. We remain indifferent when suffering is out of sight. For example, it's harder to be outraged by abuses in home care than in nursing homes because home care remains less visible. But the moral lesson is clear: silence and invisibility can kill. What is the solution? Some of us would like to believe that putting more money into Medicare will solve our problems. But money without conscience or restraint can make matters worse-- e.g., the rate of unnecessary surgery in the U.S. So too, we may favor drug benefits under Medicare but we had better pay attention to polypharmacy and deaths already resulting from multiple medications taken by too many patients. Solidarity and social welfare programs like those in France sound good. But if elders are invisible or staff members are on vacation or indifferent, how will lives be saved when the next heat wave comes? How can we have solidarity without morality? -----------------------<<< >>>------------------------ WEB SITES TO SEE LORD OF THE RINGS. Could an archetypal image of old age be the secret to Hollywood success? Look at "The Wise Old Man: Gandalf as Archetype in The Lord of the Rings" available at: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/papers/gandalf.html STAGES OF A WOMAN'S LIFE. For an Annotated Guide to "Books for Midlife and Older Women" evaluated in a model for transtheoretical stages of change, visit: http://wnkhome.northstarnet.org/owlill/change_selfhelp.html RESEARCH IN EUROPE. The Research Network on Ageing in Europe now has a web site at: http://www.ageing-in-europe.de/ -----------------------<<< >>>------------------------ NEWSLETTER ON TEACHING GERONTOLOGY A free e-newsletter on TEACHING GERONTOLOGY is now available for college faculty and others who teach courses in aging. The monthly newsletter includes pedagogical best practices, new instructional resources, and ideas for teaching critical thinking and attention to values in gerontology. For a sample issue or free subscription, contact: TeachGero@Yahoo.com -----------------------<<< >>>------------------------ REMINISCENCE AND TELLING STORIES There are insights about aging and narrative on the website for the Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California at Berkeley. This site includes the text of lectures by Kathleen Woodward on the meaning of reminiscence and life-review. Visit them at: http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/townsend/pubs/OP09_Telling_Stories.pdf -----------------------<<< >>>------------------------ CONSCIOUS AGING AUDIO TAPES The first national conference on "Conscious Aging" was held in 1992 under sponsorship of the Omega Institute. But even more than a decade later it's not too late to attend that conference. You can listen to a six-hour audio tape version "Conscious Aging: A Creative and Spiritual Journey" available from Sounds True. This audio collection features Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Marion Woodman, Maggie Kuhn, Ram Dass, and Bernie Siegel, among others. Presenters offer a vision of elders as bearers of wisdom, creativity, and healing. Available at: http://www.ventana-catalog.com/AF00006.htm -----------------------<<< >>>------------------------ BOOKS OF INTEREST AGING IN TODAY'S WORLD: Conversations Between an Anthropologist and a Physician, by Reneé Rose Shield and Stanley M. Aronson (Berghahn Books, 2003). AGING, SPIRITUALITY, AND PASTORAL CARE: A Multi-National Perspective, edited by Elizabeth MacKinlay and James W. Ellor (Haworth Pastoral Press, 2002). AGING BODIES: Images and Everyday Experience, by Christopher A. Faircloth (AltaMira Press, 2003). ===================================================== CALENDAR OF EVENTS "THE GREEN HOUSES: ELDERHOMES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY" (Sept. 16, 2003, Washington, DC). Premier of a new film about an innovative model for long-term care in America, developed by Dr. Bill Thomas, founder of the Eden Alternative. The first four Green Houses in the nation, which are group homes using a social and rehabilitative model of care and staff empowerment to serve elders needing skilled care, are already home to 40 elders in Tupelo, Mississippi. The new film comes from Wiland-Bell Productions, known for its "Thou Shalt Honor" documentary on caregiving that broadcast on PBS stations last year. The film will be shown at The National Press Club (First Amendment Room), 529 14th Street NW, 13th floor, at 5 PM, Sept. 16. If you want to attend, RSVP to Jude Rabig, Greenhouse Project Director, at: greenhouseproject@citilink.net PROLONGEVITY: "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence: Reasons Why Genuine Control of Aging may be Foreseeable" (Sept. 19-23, 2003, Queens' College, Cambridge, England). International Association of Biomedical Gerontology 10th Congress. Speakers include: Arthur Caplan, Michael West (Advanced Cell Technologies) and William Haseltine (Human Genome Sciences). For details, see: http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/iabg10/ "WHOLISTIC SPIRITUAL CARE with Older Adults" (Sept. 24, 2003, Anaheim, CA). Full-day workshop presented by by Mel Kimble, PhD, the first of four Spiritual Care Basics seminars. Participants use the work of Viktor Frankl to explore how aging shapes late-life spirituality and identify best-practices in long-term care settings. $50 ($20 more if CEU desired), including lunch. Held at Walnut Manor Retirement Community at Carlsbad By The Sea Retirement Community in Carlsbad, California. To register or for more information, call Donald Koepke at (714) 239-6267 or email dkoepke@frontporch.net ELDERHOSTEL: "Seasons Of Spiritual Life: A Gathering For Seekers" (Sept. 28, 2003, Abiqui, New Mexico). Ghost Ranch offers a one-week program with disciplines for enriching spiritual life, including music, centering prayer, journal writing, walking the labyrinth, and creating sacred spaces and altars. Elderhostel, the world's largest education-travel program, offers liberal arts programs to those over age 55 at hundreds of sites around the world. For details visit: http://www.elderhostel.org REMINISCENCE AND LIFE-REVIEW. (Oct. 8-11, 2003, Vancouver, Canada). 5th Annual Conference of the International Society for Reminiscence and Life-Review. For information on registration, visit the website at: http://ReminiscenceandLifeReview.org SECOND JOURNEY: "Visioning Council." (Oct. 16-19, 2003, North Carolina). Second Journey, an organization devoted to mindfulness, service and community in the second half of life, will sponsor a 4-day "visioning council" to generate new ideas for creating community in later life. This gathering, to be held at Wildacres, a retreat center in western North Carolina, will bring together those interested in aging, sustainable design and community, including architects, developers, educators, writers and visionaries. Those interested in further information about attending should visit the Second Journey website at: http://www.SecondJourney.org/wildacres.htm For further information, contact Bolton Anthony at (919) 933-7878 or email at: SecondJourney@att.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "The meeting with oneself is at first the meeting with one's own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is." -Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This electronic newsletter, edited by Harry (Rick) Moody, is published by the Institute for Human Values in Aging at the International Longevity Center-USA and co-sponsored by the Institute for Medical Humanities, Galveston, Texas. The Newsletter contains items of interest about humanistic gerontology; it does not publish original writing but is limited to brief and timely announcements. To submit items of interest or request subscription changes, contact hrmoody@yahoo.com The Institute for Human Values in Aging is part of the International Longevity Center-USA, with support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Princeton, New Jersey. For additional information, see http://www.HRMoody.Com To see the Archive of previous issues of this newsletter, visit the ILC website at: http://www.ilcusa.org/pub/news.htm (c) Copyright 2003; all rights reserved. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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