I read a great post on the SlowDownNow.org blog. In it Christopher Richards describes his experience of being looked after by a doctor who took his time, then his experience of trying to find a new doctor after this first one had retired.
I’m pretty sure we’re losing something really important with our current round of NHS reform. And its something related to speed. Sure you need fast, effective treatment when you are acutely unwell, but the surgeon or physician who is tending you still needs to take his or her time and not rush things or the job just won’t get done properly. However, the big demand in health care these days is chronic disease and here we really have been looking for quick fixes at the expense of taking our time to listen, to understand and to enable patients to adapt, to grow and to enlarge their lives in the presence of their diseases.
An American sociology professor, Arthur Frank, wrote “The Wounded Storyteller” (ISBN 0-226-25993-5) to describe his study of how patients talk about their illnesses. He identified three major “genre” of narrative – the “restitution” one – which is the quick fix approach to health care (“A bit of me’s broken. If you could just fix it or replace then I’ll be on my way”). This is appropriate in much urgent and acute medicine but is really of no use in chronic illness or in enabling patients to become genuinely healthy. He proposes that doctors should help their patients to create new narratives – “quest narratives” based on the principles of Joseph Campbell’s work on the structure of myths and legends (otherwise known as Hero stories).
That very process entails a shift from the quick, the immediate, the partial to the slow, the lasting and the whole.
I wrote here about countering Getting Things Done with Dolce Far Niente, and here about finding the spaces where you can relax, and here about becoming aware of the gaps in our experience.
What ways do you slow down?
Does slowing down improve your quality of life? Give you time to reflect, re-charge, and to grow?
Heroes Not Zombies 
Watch this interesting TED talk about “Slowing down in a world built for speed”:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/73
GREAT link Sugar Mouse, I really enjoyed it. If anybody wants an intro to the Slow Movement idea, this is a great place to start.
I was just thinking about this yesterday, because of how speeding up will always get me producing bad work, bad paintings, bad drawings, things to just throw away. Art is something that only gets better if you put your heart and soul into it, all of your love, time and attention, so the very millisecond that you try to speed it up is when it doesn’t work (probably just like any endeavor that humans could put energy into). So because of art being a lifestyle – a way of living, that mentality seeps into all other facets, making me want to always take real notice of the world and really digest the value in life.
Bob,
Thank you for your post and the comment on my blog. I shall add you to my blogroll. Your story of finding a more time-friendly occupation is instructive. Well done for making such a move.
I have another such story from an American academic who gave up the rat race for a calmer position in New Zealand: Less prestige but a happier life.
I hope you were not in such a rush that you failed to drop by the official International Institute of Not Doing Much (IINDM) at http://www.SlowDownNow.org.
I am hard at work slowly thinking about how Dr. Émile Lenteur came to discover Relaxons. For those that don’t know, Relaxons are particles given off by calm and slow people. Close proximity to a slow person excreting Relaxons will have the effect of calming the hurried and harried. All the more reason to Slow Down Now.
I just returned a book to the library and I can’t remember the name of it. It’s a sad thing that I remember so little. I forget so much.
I do remember that is was a history of medicine in the United States. It was a thick boo, but it all boils down to a call for more time to educate doctors.
At one time education used to be controlled by the universities, but in the last few decades there is more time-pressure to rush doctors through medical school and the quality of education is declining. Our system here in the US is broken, and that isn’t even addressing the access issue.
NHS reform, sound like it is a naughty child and needs to be reprimanded.
Your in slowness,
Christopher
I meant a thick book, not a think boo.
oh that’s a shame, Christopher, I quite liked the idea of a think boo! (or even a thick boo!)
I agree with you that education has become too rushed, just like medicine. I think the Slow movement is really interesting. The more we rush things, the poorer the experience.
Maybe we need to add “Slow Health” to the Slow Movement and start to campaign for doctors and patients to be able to spend more time together.
You are so right about the “NHS reform” – it does make it sound like the NHS is a naughty child. How English Public School!
I really do feel that the fundamental failure of our Health Care Systems is speed – if we spend too little time with patients, then we neither understand them properly (so we don’t make full enough “diagnoses”), nor do we fully treat them – have a look at my post on the “3 Rs of Health Care” – it takes time to help a person by not just going for a quick fix, but instead to assist their recovery and make them more resilient so they don’t just get sick again quickly.