Being out of town multiple the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to try to absorb what my paper will be about. Attending a conference full of activists also helped place some of my observations in perspective. I did not quite recognize the uniqueness of the seemingly banal setting of the clinic. It really is a product of a capitalistic process occurring in suburban Texas linking all the way back to Washington, DC via bureaucracy and federal dollars.
The substance of my interviews are much more relevant to current events that I realized. For example, my interview with a doctor commented on a number of aspects of medicine that need addressing but seem to go unrecognized by medical policy makers. The new healthcare bill though extraordinary in its dynamism will not impact medicine as much as we might like and will not likely impact this health clinic much. Patients will still be suffering from chronic illness due to lifestyle, health employees will continue to abuse their own health, and health clinics will continue to try to find ways to make money (even if they are non-profits).
Perhaps that was a bit too stream of consciousness, but that is what is going into my head. I do not think it would be appropriate in my developing paper which will be much less connected to the big picture, I think.
In any case, this project has really helped me begin on a very long journey to understand the healthcare system and the people that work it. I feel very fortunate for the questions this project has led me to ask- but now I need to start compiling and understanding the answers I have been given!
First, it is normal to be thinking about it more than you are writing :)
ReplyDeleteAnd, second, I am excited about the dialogic process your work is going through, moving between the smallness and the particularness of your site and the larger "picture"--this is what I am hoping everyone will do, in some way or another.