Medizin verändern

Are we being treated well? Are we truly seen and heard during our doctor visits? Are we receiving competent and comprehensive advice and can we confidently engage in recommended measures that are individually tailored to our medical situation? Can we expect that the full spectrum of therapeutic options will be utilized to help us achieve better well-being and health? Or are we simply processed with our complaints, fears, and worries and ultimately left alone? In his most personal book to date, Dietrich Grönemeyer describes, through moving experiences and stories, what has shaped his understanding as a doctor—and what we need to do as a society to achieve good health: We need a medicine that addresses patients individually and holistically, where prevention, education, and personal responsibility play a crucial role, where healing competencies are combined, healers function as a dedicated, trustworthy team, and the doctor-patient relationship represents a genuine encounter on equal footing, as many nurses and caregivers already exemplify, despite significant frustration and lack of appreciation—both humanly and financially. The impersonal organization and the dictates of economics and administration in medicine increasingly hinder a dignified healing art between high-tech and natural medicine, between psychosomatics and environmental medicine. Change is possible—Dietrich Grönemeyer is convinced of this. His motto "Giving Life to Years" stands for a medicine of well-being, where every person can only stand in one place: at the center.