Ten Prerequisites for 21st Century Health
• freedom
• self esteem
• lifelong growth and learning
• lifelong meaningful work
• pleasure
• to love and beloved
• open communication with others
• a sense of community
• connectedness to a universal life force
• some level of socioeconomic well being
Dr. Rick Lippin
July, 1996
revised November, 1999.
Each of us is born with beauty within us which we desire to make manifest and share during our lifetime. What better way to achieve this fundamental human drive for creative expression than through the arts? All we need is permission. All we need is love.
Richard Lippin
"The Doctrine of
Original Beauty”
1994
As the enterprise of health care increasingly embraces a holistic (bio-psycho-social-spiritual) model, so too the field of architecture is exploring holism -- manifested by increasing interest in breaking down barriers between places of worship, places of healing and places of artistic display or artistic performance -- Thus lines are blurring between churches, hospitals, art museums and performance halls -- What shall we call these new structures of total healing?
Richard Lippin
Our renaissance has arrived
Its names are holism and humanism
Both its manifestation and its nourishment
is the arts.
R.Lippin
Mitzpe Rachel, Israel
April, 1989
"The incorporation of responsible pleasures into patients’ lives is the single most underutilized source of health in our time.”
The Impact of Responsible Pleasures on Health and Longevity The Society of Prospective Medicine -
Annual Conference
Richard A. Lippin, MD
March 1996
Individual Responsibility on Health Care
As we have done with welfare reform, it is time to apply the cherished (and correct) American principle of individual responsibility to health care in this nation. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about half of all premature mortalities are directly related to individually-chosen health behaviors. A growing number of U.S. citizens are becoming increasingly intolerant of economically subsidizing those who willfully choose to abuse their bodies and thus jeopardize their health and health insurance premium rates to modifiable individuals risks. Also, through more aggressive medical claims analysis, we need to implement programs that effectively manage modifiable costs linked to modifiable behaviors. Educated, enlightened and empowered patient-citizens, properly incented, need to engage in responsible health-related behaviors. The health, social and economic consequences of not doing so are so staggering as to threaten the very stability of our nation. We need to give patients across this country -- and by example the rest of the world -- the greatest gift of all: the gift of themselves.
Richard Lippin
Grow Up America - A Health Care Reform Plan
• Stop prolonging death. It’s both expensive and dehumanizing at best, greedy and cruel at worst.
• Empower US citizens to assume increased individual responsibility for health and convince medical consumers that it is in their best interests not to assume the role of helpless, dependent victims/patients.
• Face the reality that a very large percentage of illnesses, injuries and hospitalizations are entirely preventable. Subsequently, the elimination of tobacco, alcohol, drug and medication abuse alone could immediately reduce medical costs by a factor of at least fifty percent.
• Incent and train physicians to maintain the health of patients and populations.
• Recognize that early childhood preventive medical education can profoundly affect lifelong health behaviors.
proposed by
Richard A. Lippin, MD
The Three Most Serious Mistakes of Contemporary U.S. Medicine
-Doctors stopped listening to patients
-Doctors stopped touching patients
-Doctors ignored the application of the science of physics or energy systems to medicine
The fundamental goal of Eastern man is transcendance
The fundamental goal of Western man is creation
Dr. Rick Lippin
January 1999
The true healer neither knows nor seeks boundaries between the arts and medicine.
Richard Lippin
Medicine's REAL Revolution
Major advances in modern Neuroscience with all of its profound implications (like the physiology of human perception and the physiology of human intentionality or choice) will significantly dwarf, if not render childlike, all the projections that molecular biology and the human genome project will “revolutionize” Medicine in the 21st century
Dr. Rick Lippin
January, 1999
Paradigm of Medical Optimism
While I have written extensively on the so called Paradigm of Medical Optimism (a term I first utilized in1991), at its essence this paradigm is essentially one which is based on a love of life, self determination and responsibility, in contradistinction to our current predominant medical paradigm of pathology and paternalism which is based on a fear of death, dependency and victimhood
Rick Lippin, M.D
March ,1995
Ten Commandments for the 21st Century - Based on a Paradigm of Spiritual Optimism*
1. To thine own self be true-know thyself, love thyself, be thyself
2. Honor thy parents who have given you the gift of life and who have raised you from infancy
3. Honor and protect the planet earth which is your home
4. Honor and protect the holy temple of your body- your human flesh
5. Seek, experience and celebrate the beauty of everyone and everything
6. Enjoy thyself that thou might be enjoyed
7. Cherish and protect your individual freedom
8. Find and do meaningful work throughout all the days of your life
9. Prepare for a quality and dignified death from the very beginning of your life - cultivate gratitude
1O. Give and receive as much love as you possibly can including the unconditional and infinite love of God
Dr. Rick Lippin
April 2000
* with gratitude to high priestess extraordinaire- Dr. Joan Borysenko who gave us all the gift of the transformational words- “spiritual optimism”
The Medicine of Who You Are
If the human genome is the map for human biology the arts is the map of the equally important human heart and soul
Dr. Rick Lippin
July, 2000
New Roles for Physicians in the Information Age
-Information sorters, guides and interpreters
-Decision specialists/coaches
-Teachers
-Motivators of Behavioral Change
-Integrating patient’s values into health care
-Spiritual guides
-Care coordinators (especially primary care)
-Patient advocates
-Providers of emotional support (being there)
-Others?
Dr. Rick Lippin
The practice of Medicine at its best is mostly giving patients permission, guidance, and encouragement to become themselves
Dr. Rick Lippin
April 1984
Rx
Find and do meaningful work until the day you die
Dr. Rick Lippin
On this tragic day in our country’s history I cannot help but say I have often thought (as others possibly have) that the opposite of violence, terrorism or even war is not the absence of those activities, but rather the creative process, including the arts which of course is related to healing.
Richard A. Lippin, MD
Founding President,
International Arts-Medicine Association
Remarks made at the College of
Physicians of Philadelphia, 4/21/95
(two days after the Oklahoma City bombing)
"The opposite of war is not peace - it is the creative process."
Dr. Rick Lippin
"The most dangerous words ever written or spoken: 'God is on my side'. The most healing words ever written or spoken: 'God is at my side'."
Dr. Rick Lippin