Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Max Mittleman
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White
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T
his July, the Michigan
Medicine hospitals were
ranked first in the state of
Michigan and 11th in the country
by U.S. News and World Report.
As a recent University of Michigan
graduate, this makes me incredibly
proud. We call ourselves the
Leaders and the Best, and it seems
others continue to recognize our
excellence on many fronts as well.
However, these rankings also make
me frustrated. If Michigan has one
of the best hospital systems in the
country, then why was my most
recent experience at the hospital
spending 22 hours in a chair while
in a psychological crisis?
As an incredibly stressed-out
undergraduate at the University
and a resident of Ann Arbor until
2018, I was a frequent face at
Psychiatric Emergency Services,
almost always because of suicidal
ideation. This specialty program
behind the emergency room is
meant to provide mental health
crisis
evaluations,
treatment
recommendations and screening
for inpatient hospitalization. I’ve
written before, in an effort to put
a face to a psychiatric patient and
reduce stigma, about how these
countless PES visits and two
hospitalizations helped stabilize my
mental health. What I have written
less about are some of the negative
experiences that went along with
being a patient.
To say I spent 22 hours in PES
while already suicidal is not an
exaggeration. I spent it sitting
in an uncomfortable chair and
had little contact with health
professionals after the initial few
hours of evaluation. The lights were
constantly on, I was getting next
to no sleep, and I was listening to
House Hunters play on repeat until
I felt so numb, I began begging
to go home. This is not a unique
experience. I’ve met and heard from
countless others who spent similar
spans of time, or longer — sometimes
days — waiting in PES for a bed on a
local inpatient unit, of which there is
a nation-wide shortage. Doctors first
and foremost take an oath to do no
harm. How was this not harming my
already fragile mental state? I could
similarly talk of the time I was sent
home from an inpatient stay with
few resources besides a safety plan
that I compliantly filled out without
much else of a choice. I expressed
with terror to my discharging nurse
that I shouldn’t be sent home, only to
almost attempt to take my life and
end up back at PES a few hours later.
Let me make this clear: I place
little blame for my experiences on
the doctors, nurses, social workers
and other staff I interacted with at
Michigan Medicine. They couldn’t
conjure up more inpatient beds or
create a more restful space in the
PES waiting room. They were doing
their best with the system, resources
and training that existed. I do believe
that their intentions were good,
and at least most of them wanted
the best for me. My point is that if
Michigan is going to continue to lead
as one of the best hospitals in the
country, we need to lead in putting
more resources into expanding and
improving the quality of psychiatric
services, and these changes need
to be a priority. We need to expand
and put beds in PES, so patients are
not spending days waiting in a chair.
We need to increase the number of
inpatient psychiatric beds available,
both statewide and nationally. We
need to fortify discharge planning
and resources, particularly for
patients frequently going to PES, so
others aren’t leaving feeling as lost
as I did many times.
Michigan
Medicine
received
national
rankings
(or
high
performing
recognition
for
Rehabilitation) from U.S. World
and News Report in every single
department
classified,
except
psychiatry. Michigan is eighth in
urology, eighth in ophthalmology,
10th in pulmonology and lung
surgery, 13th in cardiology and heart
surgery, 15th in geriatrics and the
list goes on to include every other
department compared. However,
psychiatry is “not ranked” on a
national level. That is a disgrace to
our well-known name on a national
and worldwide stage.
The
Michigan
Medicine
website states that “this is the 27th
consecutive year that Michigan
Medicine
has
been
nationally
recognized
for
strong
across-
the-board performance.” Jeffrey
Desmond, chief medical officer of
Michigan Medicine, was quoted as
saying, “Our priorities are providing
the safest and highest quality of
care to all our patients.” I can’t help
but feel that a key field of medicine
and a vulnerable sub-population
of patients is missing or being
forgotten in these statements.
At the end of the day, I am still a
huge Michigan fan. I wear maize
and blue with pride, cheer on the
Wolverines on game days and look
forward to visiting Ann Arbor again
soon. I’m grateful for my time as a
student there, though it was also
filled with pain and difficult mental
health issues. Importantly, I am
doing much better now mentally, in
part because of the staff I interacted
with through Michigan Medicine.
I love my alma mater, dearly, yet
it’s because of this love that I want
Michigan to do better.
Michigan Medicine is one of the best, and can do better
MAX STEINBAUM | COLUMN
What Uncle Sam could learn from Johnny Canuck
MORGAN RONDINELLI | OP-ED
I
t’s 2:15 p.m. on a Tuesday in
May, and most of Canada’s
federal legislators have taken
their seats in the House of Commons
chamber. Geoff Regan, a member of
Parliament for West Halifax, dressed
in the barrister robes of the Speaker
of the House of Commons, rises from
his stately speaker chair at the end
of the aisle dividing the governing
Liberal Party from the minority
opposition. “Oral questions,” Regan
pronounces,
before
repeating
himself in French. He yields the
floor to Andrew Scheer, the leader
of the Conservative Party and the
Question Period is underway.
The controversy of the day is a
scandal involving Mark Norman,
a former vice admiral in the
Royal Canadian Navy. Norman,
of the Canadian military, was
charged with a breach of trust in
March 2019 for allegedly leaking
sensitive
information
about
a
shipbuilding contract. For months,
the Conservatives have accused
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s
administration of unjustly assailing
Norman for the leak, and even of
political interference as Norman’s
case developed.
Scheer stands and looks across
the aisle at Trudeau. “The prime
minister has finally decided to
answer some questions on the Mark
Norman affair,” Scheer says with
a smile. “He’s had plenty of time to
rehearse the script and memorize
the lines. What I’d like to know is ...
why the government went through
such efforts to prevent the truth
from coming out.”
Scheer’s
riled
Conservative
colleagues
rise
and
applaud.
Trudeau, who had been staring
Scheer down during his diatribe,
buttons his black blazer and prepares
to speak. The prime minister then
stands and, beginning his response,
a chorus of Conservative heckling
nearly drowns him out.
These raucous showdowns are
a near-daily occurrence in Ottawa,
and are even a cornerstone feature
of Canadian democracy. But such
a debate 700 miles south between
Democrats and Republicans —
much less U.S. House Speaker Pelosi
and President Donald Trump — is
almost unimaginable. A cause of this
difference, of course, is the respective
structures of the American and
Canadian governments. Canada’s
parliamentary
system
comes
from the Westminster model that
evolved in London, under which
the leading party in the House of
Commons — the equivalent to our
House of Representatives — selects
a member of its ranks to serve
as prime minister. In this way, a
parliamentary system intertwines
executive and legislative functions,
making the country’s head of
government more responsible to the
legislative branch.
Under
the
United
States’s
presidential system, the executive
and
legislative
branches
are
independent
by
design.
A
presidential system has its merits,
such as the right of a country’s
constituents to vote directly for
the chief executive — an ability not
afforded by a parliamentary system.
A glaring drawback, however, is
that our legislative branch is far less
able to readily hold the president
accountable. The U.S. president is
not required to listen and respond to
the accusations of a hostile Congress.
So why would he? In fact, the
president only enters Congress once
a year for the prepared State of the
Union address and never responds
to the questions and concerns of
representatives.
The consequences of having
no forum for debate between the
president and legislators include
having less ways to hold America’s
chief
executive
accountable
to
Congress and fewer observable
interactions between our president
and lawmakers. It’s a stark contrast
to the Canadian Parliament, where
the prime minister’s presence at
Question Period is an expectation,
and where Trudeau has been
slammed for a poor attendance
record in the past — which evidently
means appearing a scant once or
twice a week.
It must be acknowledged, of
course, that little legislative progress
is actually made during Question
Period. It’s more of a circuitous
shouting match than anything
productive,
concedes
Canadian
news magazine Macleans’s Aaron
Wherry, but it’s still “an essentially
wonderful thing. Each afternoon,
the government of the day must
face the criticism and scrutiny of its
nearest rivals in an open and only
barely restrained public forum.”
If nothing else, Question Period
forces Canada’s leaders to engage
each other on a daily basis, and its
broadcast provides the Canadian
public with constant insight into the
political affairs of the day.
From
my
frequent
summer
visits to the public balcony above
the Commons floor, “QP,” as my
Canadian colleagues called it,
seemed to be evidence of a robust
and healthy democracy. I regretted
that there was no American
analogue, and more so that such an
easily-implemented practice will
likely never become a feature of
our democracy.
As it turns out, the idea of
Congress hosting the president
and cabinet members in a QP-style
forum has historical precedent. “At
various times,” details Matthew
Glassman of the Congressional
Research Service, “proposals have
been offered by American scholars
and public officials to increase
the formal contact between the
executive branch and Members
of Congress.” Even as recently as
2009, then-candidate for president
Sen. John McCain stated he would
“ask Congress to grant me the
privilege of coming before both
Houses to take questions and
address criticism, much the same as
the prime minister of Great Britain
appears regularly before the House
of Commons.”
It is high time we revisit the
question of Question Period. In
March 2019, a Quinnipiac poll
found that 65 percent of Americans
feel Trump is not honest. Such
a condemnation of our current
president’s integrity, it seems,
translates to a public desire for more
executive accountability.
In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville
praised
American
democracy
and its “matchless Constitution.”
We have long adhered to notions
of American exceptionalism as
articulated
by
de
Tocqueville,
forged by an enduring trust in the
governmental system created by the
Founding Fathers. This faith, while
well-placed, has made Americans
reluctant to introduce changes to
our democracy — and, too often,
we irresponsibly regard revision as
unnecessary. In reality, we must be
willing to borrow effective ideas in
response to modern concerns.
After all, while de Tocqueville
considered America exceptional,
he also did not believe it was
beyond reproach. “The greatness
of America lies not in being more
enlightened than any other nation,”
de Tocqueville wrote, “but rather in
her ability to repair her faults.”
Max Steinbaum can be reached at
maxst@umich.edu.
Morgan Rondinelli is a University
alum in Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology. She is currently serving with
AmeriCorps as a Mental Health First
Aid Instructor.
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FROM THE DAILY
Urge talks for peace, not politics
L
ast week, President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that
peace talks with the Taliban were “dead,” putting a halt to
nearly a year of conversations between the United States and the
insurgent terrorist group. The proclamation came right after Trump
revealed plans to have a secret meeting with Taliban leaders at the
historic Camp David. The president claimed he ended these talks after
the Taliban admitted to their role in an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan
that killed at least 11 people, including one U.S. service member. This
attack alone, he said, was enough to indicate that Taliban leaders do
not “have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway.”
However, this attack is far
from the first indication that
the
Taliban
has
continued
hostilities during negotiations.
In fact, negotiations continued
amid a spike in killings of
both Afghan civilians and U.S.
soldiers by the Taliban. Many
of these have been substantially
more deadly than the suicide
attack in Kabul last week,
suggesting
that
this
event
served more as an excuse than
a reason to end negotiations.
The sudden end of peace
talks came with surprise as
the U.S. Special Representative
to
Afghanistan,
Zalmay
Khalilzad, stated an agreement
had been reached that was
waiting to be finalized by
Trump. This abrupt reversal
casts doubt on the Trump
administration’s motives for
coming
to
the
negotiation
table in the first place. The
hypothetical agreement allows
Trump to fulfill a longstanding
campaign promise to bring an
end to the war in Afghanistan,
satisfying his voter base as the
2020 election looms around the
corner.
Moreover,
canceling
negotiations last week — two
days before the anniversary
of the 9/11 terrorist attacks —
allowed
the
administration
to demonstrate a superficial
willingness
to
“stand
up”
against the Taliban and paint
the insurgents as the true
obstacle to peace.
Peace talks with the Taliban
are one example of Trump
exploiting political issues to
maintain
relevance,
further
his image and establish his
legacy.
Trump’s
choice
to
announce an end to previously
secret negotiations through a
social media platform not only
cheapens the issue but turns it
into an open spectacle. Drawing
attention and a following to his
administration by dramatizing
political decisions reflects a
strategy that Trump has used
repeatedly during the U.S.-
North Korea summit and the
U.S. withdrawal from the Paris
Climate
Agreement.
Trump
follows a legacy of presidents
who use political negotiations
for personal gain and as a
ploy, ultimately impeding the
improvement of U.S. foreign
policy.
As part of a generation that
grew up with the 18-year long
conflict in Afghanistan, seeing
yet another president use the
promise of peace as a political
gambit is frustrating. In 2003,
President George W. Bush’s
Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld announced an end to
“major-combat,” even as NATO
added 65,000 troops to the war-
torn country. Later, President
Barack
Obama
promised
to withdraw all troops by
2014, but instead left nearly
100,000 American soldiers in
Afghanistan at the end of that
year. As a longtime critic of the
war in Afghanistan, Trump had
said that his “original instinct
was to pull out.” In fact, in
February of 2019, American
diplomats
sat
down
with
Taliban officials to begin one of
the final rounds of negotiation.
In the end, Trump’s cancellation
of peace talks possibly lost him
a rare opportunity to put an
end to a conflict that continues
to kill both U.S. troops and
innocent civilians.
War
is
complex,
and
simply
withdrawing
our
troops
overnight
without
considering the ramifications
would be irresponsible and
potentially disastrous to the
Afghan government, now that
the
Taliban
controls
about
14.5 percent of the country’s
territories (this excludes those
territories currently contested).
However,
Afghanistan’s
unstable
government
has
long been the justification to
prolong this conflict. President
Bush stated in 2005 that the
purpose of the war was to “help
ensure
Afghanistan’s
long-
term security, democracy, and
prosperity.” Yet, over a decade
later, the Afghan democracy
remains
weak,
flawed
and
corrupt.
While the U.S. has long
claimed to be a bearer of
peace and democracy, much
of
Afghanistan
political
instability is a result of the
Taliban’s influence and the
continued occupation by the
United States. Trump argues
that simply leaving and giving
the Taliban free reign would
be a dramatic abdication of
responsibility.
However,
if
the U.S. should continue to
act as a beacon of democracy,
there needs to be substantive
discussion about how the U.S.
can rectify its past and current
foreign
policy
decisions
in
Afghanistan. Actions like those
made by Trump this past week
do not accomplish this end.
Moreover, the peace talks thus
far have excluded the Afghan
government.
We recognize that the conflict
in Afghanistan is complex, and
our call to action requires a
genuine commitment to peace.
An essential first step to reviving
peace talks is a re-evaluation of
U.S. foreign policy decisions
made in Afghanistan for the
past 20 years. Simply coming to
the table is not enough, and it is
imperative for all parties to not
only be included in the talks,
but also be truly committed to
ending the conflict to protect
the lives of both U.S. troops
and Afghan civilians. Hence,
the Trump administration must
prioritize the peace process
rather than use it to for political
capital and media attention.
Michigan Medicine
received national
rankings ... in every
single department
classified, except
psychiatry