A Calling for Humaneness & Wisdom In The Healthcare System

— "For the most part, the problem is not bad people in healthcare: it is that good people are working in a lousy system that needs to be made safer with more checks and balances, communication, empathy, and oversight. Patients, family members, and advocates need to recognize and have the confidence to fight, question everything and double-check on decisions made by those in charge. When you are sick, you feel like you have lost control. That is why you are the patient. The reality is you do have some control, just as those who advocate for you do. Let them help you; you do not have to go it alone."

Valeria interviews Melissa Mullamphy — She is the author of "Not in Vain, A Promise Kept."

Melissa Mullamphy is a masters level psychologist, a health care expert and advocate, and critically-acclaimed author. Beginning her working life at age fourteen, she did everything from filling grocery bags to playing in an all-girl heavy metal thrash band to selling lottery tickets. Always busy, ever searching for ways to improve and to help others, she received her Master's degree in counseling psychology. Working in a psychiatric emergency room, leading various non-profit events, and running group therapy sessions gave her an insider's view of the health care system—and the failings in how it was run (not to mention the pay scale) finally turned her to the corporate world.

Working as a Domestic Operations Manager for one of Warren Buffet's firms, she spent the next two decades traveling the country in limousines and airplanes, enjoying fine dining, and "becoming a responsible adult." All of which came to a screeching halt when her mother was diagnosed with cancer, thrusting her back into the world of health care—on the other side of the equation.

Caring for her mother through her terminal illness, Mullamphy got an up-close view of the failings and bad practices of the medical system. She saw evil in the neglectful and incompetent people skimming along within a health care structure that preferred almost everything over the patients and witnessed heroism in good people trying their best to help in a system they knew was hopelessly broken.

After her mother's death, Mullamphy turned her life's experience—as a psychologist, a corporate manager, and survivor of a failed medical system—to advocacy. Arguing in books, articles, and blogs about the (sometimes deadly) failures of our health care systems, she highlights failures, points out successes, and advocates for change in our most critical—and critically deficient—medical procedures and organizations.

To learn more about Melissa Mullamphy and her work, please visit: melissamullamphy.com

— This podcast is a quest for well-being, a quest for a meaningful life through the exploration of fundamental truths, enlightening ideas, insights on physical, mental, and spiritual health. The inspiration is Love. The aspiration is to awaken new ways of thinking that can lead us to a new way of being, being well.