The yearly physical has been an integral part of outpatient medicine for the last three quarters of a century. Some argue it is a waste; some love it for the reassurance it gives. There really is not a consensus on this staple of American medicine. I would argue that its benefit is unclear because it is NOT really used the right way.
The yearly physical is designed to detect "hidden" disease such as breast or colon cancer or laboratory abnormalities that are indicative of sickness. These are worthwhile goals, of course, and I am not attempting to debate the benefit of screening and prevention.
The issue in my mind as we as a nation are trying to go forward and make health care better is: Can we make the yearly physical an opportunity to improve the quality of life?
I believe we can. I believe there are assessments we can do and improvements we can implement which can influence lives for the better. The monitoring of posture and movement and the evaluation and actual working with the mood, attitude and general outlook of the client are probably the two most relevant and important interventions we can offer. Unfortunately, these critical windows are not part of our current physical exam. They are lost in the overwhelming pursuit of "data" and checkpoints. They have taken a backseat to the "disease model".
Can we change and evolve? To me, the answer is undoubtedly "yes". However, it will never happen in the already overburdened and soon to be more overburdened "system". The evolution will have to surface in a grassroots way until it is shown to clearly make life better for our people. This is what we envision and are creating at Pando. A new approach to medicine and health that looks deeper than the numbers and data and dares to explore the inner life of people with an intention to help people feel better from the inside-out.
The physical follows our definition of health. Since we currently define health as the "absence of disease", we end up with a physical that looks only at ruling out problems. If we expand our definition (as we have at Pando) to include higher goals like being fully ourselves (authentic) and open in our relationships (connected), then we will go deeper in our assessment, evaluation and treatment. We will be exploring the root causes of disease and guiding people to a new level of health and well-being.
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