Thanks to ecology and theology, emergence is developing very quickly and in ways unprecedented. This is evident in the world-wide grassroots movement toward sustainability, especially in habitat restoration and in off-the-grid self-sufficiency. The briefs that follow are geared toward an analogous shift in perceptions for medicine. More information about the emergence in other fields will follow below.
Residential Habitat Restoration Clinics and Communities
These recontextualize doctors and patients in habitats in need of gentle restoration to pattern emerging medical care of one as all. Initially, groups of retiring doctors would pool resources and purchase a range or other spread; construct living building to suit the local habitat; and invite the local community to refer patients with Alderman syndrome. Over time, with fee for service funding, it could become economically sustainable. At first, the consent form would be long; cash/work charges would take time to price out, as would the development of curricula for training, and networking with volunteer or paid consultants such as organic farmers, veterinarians, arborists, habitat restorers. It might take five years to start-up the first one, and continue beyond my lifetime and yours. Incorporating as a non-profit with covenants to define scope of work and protect land legally would be advisable.
The Science of Everyday Life
Biographer Laura Dassou Walls views Henry David Thoreau’s journal, which recorded his daily observations of the habitat of Concord, MA, as his greatest work of art and of science. His contemporary, Charles Darwin, lived science in an analogous way, but with more formal experiments. They did not profit by it, but their species did. Autobiographer and botanist Hope Jahren is now participating in hundred-year forest experiments in Norway. Doctors once lived science in these ways—especially during the Scottish Enlightenment—and doing so again will place doctors and their collaborating patients in a position to pattern ways in which patient and habitat restoration become one.
Biofiction
In biofiction, biomedically literate authors begin with the assumption that humans will succeed in rescuing the body of life and write long case studies or speculative fiction detailing or imagining how this might have been accomplished (see FutureMedicine.us for more). If you are a doctor who looks forward to writing post-employment, please consider submitting a manuscript.
Medical Eldering
As an emerging medical elder, the work of the individual doctor’s wisdom years entails developing a professional legacy that guides junior colleagues to rescue the body of life. When physicians have finished their lifeworks but are still keen to save life, they can self-educate to mentor mid-career and newly-trained doctors. Some may choose to create experimental habitat restoration clinics and communities with patients who are chronically exposed to poisons or whose tolerance has failed.
Lifework
In the initial Evolve Medicine view, the lifetime is divided into three phases: preparation, lifework, and legacy. The idea is to sustain a resilient life plan that supports dynamic acquisition of knowledge and skills, selection of and engagement with vocational practice that ends in a capstone period, and wisdom work in medicine as a means for co-creating a living future.
Doctor of Life
In the working emerging paradigm, doctors may withdraw from the medical-industrial complex to practice medicine on the human scale and above. Specialists in preventive medicine and public health as well as primary care doctors who do research in epidemiology—clinical or population-based—may transition to life care by developing new curricula in habitat and global medicine—as well as by collaborating with plant and veterinary pathologists, geo-physicists, and others whose expertise can support the care of humans with all species in all places.
Emerging Medical Team
Evolve Medicine proposes a clinic care team to include: an M.D. doctor of life (with optional Ph.D. in field biology); a bodyworker who does hands-on care; a counselor who does talk therapy; and a habitat restorer who integrates physical activity with habitat restoration, prioritizing forests for rapid increase in biomass and the mitigation of climate disruption. To rescue our nested bodies, we would be well-advised to create transitional habitats resistant to climate change. The human reversal of vitacide and prevention of the sixth extinction has already begun; doctors can take advantage of a growing body of experiential learning about restoration (see the Society for Ecological Restoration).
Fertility as Multiplying Life
In addition to functioning as a superorganism that is devouring the body of life, humans are—if anything—too plentiful. Reduction of death and natural increase of the population together speed the end of life on earth. In the initial view of Evolve Medicine, women who have access to birth control are at liberty to define fertility as suits their vision of a living future. One such vision of fertility is the adoption and restoration of a habitat. Another is exploring structural anthropology to identify and try out kinship structures that involve child sharing. A third is to use Daoist celibacy practices to divert sexual energy to other centers. All of these allow lifelong and broad-spectrum methods for facilitating the evolution of human communities that live monastically—in the old or new way—so as to better care for creation.