1. A recognition that got me thinking…
Last week, it was announced that the Cleveland Clinic again has been ranked the No. 1 hospital for heart care in U.S. News & World Report’s 2021-22 Best Hospitals rankings. This is the 27th consecutive year for this recognition. I couldn’t help but note that heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the U.S. for the past 80 years. Roughly 30% of Americans have heart disease, and that number is expected to rise to more than 45% by 2035. So, we can commend the Cleveland Clinic for being number one in treating heart conditions, but at some point, we need to be concerned about their failure to succeed at preventing these conditions. Roughly $1 billion are spent EVERY SINGLE DAY on treating heart disease. Think about that number… Yikes! Sounds like good business. With all the technology, testing, and advances there have been at the Cleveland Clinic, the number of cardiac-related deaths have increased from 12.1 million in 1990 to 18.6 million in 2019. How are we defining success??? There is no place that I would rather see someone cared for with heart-related issues than the Cleveland Clinic, but we are pathetic when it comes to prevention, cures, and wellness. We must realize that our current healthcare system, and the Cleveland Clinic, is a crisis-care system, not a “health-care” system. YOU must take control of your health… YOU must make the lifestyle decisions that help prevent chronic diseases… YOU, not the healthcare system, your doctor, or the Cleveland Clinic, are responsible for maximizing your health and life.
2. Commercials I’m loving…
I’ve tuned in for some of the Olympics and love the Start Your Impossible commercials that Toyota is running. They vary quite a bit, but all have a great message. Two quotes that jumped out at me… “It might not be easy, but it will be amazing,” and “You don’t have to be amazing to start… but you have to start to be amazing.” You can find all the commercials on YouTube, but here are a couple (only 30 seconds long each)…
3. Mythological story that caught my attention this week…
Procrustes is a Greek mythological figure, who, according to Britannica.com, “had an iron bed on which he compelled his victims to lie. Here, if a victim was shorter than the bed, he stretched him by hammering or racking the body to fit. Alternatively, if the victim was longer than the bed, he cut off the legs to make the body fit the bed’s length.” From this came the term Procrustean bed, which is “an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.” And a Procrustean solution (according to Wikipedia) is “the undesirable practice of tailoring data to fit its container or some other preconceived structure. In a Procrustean solution in statistics, instead of finding the best fit line to a scatter plot of data, one first chooses the line one wants, then selects only the data that fits it, disregarding data that does not, so to “prove” some idea. It is a form of rhetorical deception made to forward one set of interests at the expense of others. The unique goal of the Procrustean solution is not win-win, but rather that Procrustes wins and the other loses. In this case, the defeat of the opponent justifies the deceptive means.” It is easy to have an idea, opinion, or agenda, and then find, use, or manipulate data to bolster and support that idea, opinion, or agenda. We saw it with asbestos, tobacco, in the food industry regarding fat, and we see it regularly with big-pharma (i.e., the opiate crisis). I try to seek the truth in every situation. This is why I am careful with whom I am listening to, where I am getting my information, and that I am not just trying to prove myself right. Beware of the Procrustean bed!