UNIT 4: HEALTH CARE
The Q Classroom
Teacher: Today we'll discuss the Unit 4 question: "How is health care changing?" Let's start with Sophy. First of all, do you think haelth care is changing?
Sophy: Oh, of course.
Teacher: How?
Sophy: Well, for one thing, technology. There's new technology all the time. Nowadays, doctors can perform surgeries with lasers that leave hardly any scar. And there are lots of new technologies for detecting illnesses.
Teacher: OK, technology is one aspect of health-care change. What else? Yuna?
Yuna: There are more specialists now. You can find doctors who focus on your particular problem.
Teacher: That's true. As the field of medicine grows, more people need to specialize, don't they? What else? How else is health care changing? Felix?
Felix: I think there is more emphasis on prevention now. They used to wait until people got sick and then try to cure them, but now we know about nutrition and the importance of a healthy lifestyle, and they can do tests to see if someone has a high chance of getting a particular illness.
Teacher: So, we've got technology, more specialiss, more emphasis on prevention, is there anything else? What do you think, Marcus? How else is health care changing?
Marcus: Hmm. People live longer now. That must be changing health care. There's probably more focus on diseases you can get when you're older.
Felix: That's true. Also, because people are living longer and older people need more health care, it means that health-care systems are costing governments more than they used to.
LISTENING 1: VACATION, ADVENTURE, AND SURGERY?
Listen for Main Ideas
Bob Simon: Thailand – an exotic vacation land known for its Buddhas, its beaches, the bustle of Bangkok. But for people needing medical care, it's known increasingly for Bumrungrad Hospital, a luxurious place which claims to have more foreign patients than any other hospital in the world. It's like a United Nations of patients here.
They're cared for by more than 500 doctors, most with international training. The hospital has state-of-the-art technology, and here's the clincher: the price. Treatment here costs about one-eighth what it does in the United States. That's right, one eight. Curt Schroeder is the CEO of Bumrungrad.
Simon: This place where we're sitting right now is the number one international hospital in the world?
Mr. Crut Schoeder: I haven't heard anybody ye who's told us that they take more than 350,000 international patients a year.
Simon: One of them is Byron Bonnewell, who lives 12,000 miles away in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he owns and runs a campground for RVs. A year and a half ago, he had a heart attack, and his doctor told him he really needed bypass surgery.
They told you that you were going to die.
Mr. Byron Bonnewell: Yeah, they did tell me I was going to die.
Simon: You did not have insurance.
Mr. Bonnewell: Did not have insurance, no.
Simon: He estimates he would have had to pay over $100,000 out of his own pocket for the operation he needed, a complicated quintuple bypass.
And did you actually decide not to do it?
Mr. Bonnewell: Yeah, yeah, I did. I guess I'd rather die with a little bit of money in my pocket than live – live poor.
Simon: He says his health was deteriorating quickly when he read about Bumrungrad Hospital.
Mr. Bonnewell: I was in my doctor's office one day having some tests done and there was a copy of Business Week magazine there. There was an article in Business Week magazine about Bumrungrad Hospital. And I came home and went on the Internet and made an appointment, and away I went to Thailand.
Simon: He made that appointment after he learned that the bypass would cost him about $12,000. He chose his cardiologist, Dr. Chad Wanishawad, after reading on the hospital's website that he used to practice at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.
Mr. Bonnewell: That's where he practiced for a number of years.
Simon: Right.
Mr. Bonnewell: Every doctor that I saw there has practiced in the United States.
Simon: You never called him.
Mr. Bonnewell: No. Never talked to him.
Simon: But three days after walking into the hospital, he was on the operating table. Two weeks later, he was home.
How was the nursing? How was the treatment?
Mr. Bonnewell: I found it so strange in Thailand because they were all registered nurses. Being in the hospital in the United States, you see all kinds of orderlies, all kinds of aides, maybe one RN on duty on the whole floor of the hospital. In Thailand, I bet I had eight RNs just on my section of the floor alone. First-class care.
