Editor's
Column
by
Tim Benjamin
We want your thoughts and new plans for 2005. One thing we would
really like is to have a better understanding of our demographics
and what you, the readers, like about the paper. What would you like
to see changed or added? So, in the next few months you'll be seeing
surveys and questionnaires that need to be filled out. Please take
the time to fill them out. There will be gifts given for participation.
We will all benefit in the long run.
It seems as though
Mai Thor shorted the outreach count by about 400 in last month
voting article. Mai said, "It's really not
a big deal, but the work was important, and it would be good for
the public to know the actual numbers."
Anne Henry reminded
us in her article that the governor believes we have a “health care spending problem.” We
may have a health care spending problem but cutting programs is
not the answer. It will take looking far beyond the next two years
and into the next 20 years. It will take years before we'll see
the real ramifications of cutting many of these health-care spending
programs. How do we want to treat our most vulnerable? How are
we going to treat the newly disabled veterans?
Recently I took
a class that focused on the question "what
is the meaning of an educated person?" One of the assets that
most of the class believed necessary was the ability to undergo critical
thinking processes. What is critical thinking? There is no one right
answer to this question; critical thinking is a combination of many
thought processes that result in an improvement or deterioration
in the state of affairs. It is the ability to take in new information,
analyze and determine the quality and validity of the new information.
A critical thinker would then synthesize that information and uses
it as a comparable for use in other circumstances. Was the effect
of using this newly gained knowledge an upgrade or downgrade in the
state of affairs and was the upgrade or improvement large enough
to warrant the time, energy and expense of this process? The next
step in critical thinking is determining whether the improvement
or upgrade in the understanding, circumstances or incident would
benefit the whole society. If not, ethically one should not proceed,
but if it is proven to be the improvement for all society ethically
then one must proceed. Now, I bet your wondering where am I going
with this? Well, I was thinking that if our legislators are educated
people and are good critical thinkers why do they have such a hard
time determining the right thing for society as a whole?
Detroit Medical
Center will be opening a rehab center this summer unlike any other
center in the United States. Dr. Steven Hinderer, director of the
new recovery center will almost exclusively be doing follow-up
research on surgeries being done in China and Portugal. Both countries
are doing different approaches with olfactory cells, harvested
from above the inner ridge of the nasal passages, which have shown
to be capable of rejuvenating the spinal cord. In an article in
the Detroit Free Press by Patricia Anstett dated Dec.13th; two
Detroiters have already had this procedure and according to Dr.
Hinderer, "Their
progress way exceeds my expectations. Both procedures are new and
promising, but are not yet studied well enough to understand the
benefits and risks of the operations." Is this just another "get
your hopes up for a miracle we have all heard a million times".
I don't know? I would like to see some of these studies talking about
increasing hand and dexterity function, control of incontinence or
stem cell for healing pressure sores. We will keep you updated on
the results of these new procedures.
