by MIKE MAGEE

Exactly 1 year ago, mental health experts alerted the medical world to their version of an assessment scale for yet another new condition – “doomscrolling.”

As defined in the article, “Constant exposure to negative news on social media and news feeds could take the form of ‘doomscrolling’ which is commonly defined as a habit of scrolling through social media and news feeds where users obsessively seek for depressing and negative information.”

No one can deny a range of legitimate concerns. Faced with continued background noise from the pandemic, add global warming, renegade AI, and the Republican Congress. And now, the devastating attacks on Israel and growing instability in the Middle East. It is no wonder that we can’t turn off the Instagram feed.

With real challenges like these, our troubled world needs her doctors and nurses to stay focused more than ever on their primary professional missions – managing health and wellness, sickness and disease, fear and worry, and yes, now “doomscrolling.”

John J. Patrick PhD, in his book Understanding Democracy, lists the ideals of democracy to include “civility, honesty, charity, compassion, courage, loyalty, patriotism, and self restraint.” The 4.2 million registered nurses and 1 million doctors in America are agents of democracy.

Regrettably, they are already being drawn away from patients by three powerful forces.

1. Corporate Dislocation – To assure maximum reimbursement, doctors and nurses are routinely asked to prioritize time and contact with data over time and access to patients.
2. Health Technology and AI Substitution – Rather than engineering solutions to expand real-time patient contact, most innovations are further distancing patients from healthcare professionals.
3. Legislative Intrusion – Complex medical decisions, long entrusted to the patient-health professional relationship to negotiate, are being transferred to ultra-conservative legislators.

We live under a constitutional and representative democracy, as do two-thirds of our fellow citizens in over 100 nations around the world. The health of these democracies varies widely. The case for democracy emphasizes its capacity to enhance dignity and self-worth, promote well-being, advance equal opportunity, protect equal rights, advance economic productivity, promote peace and order, resolve conflicts peacefully, hold rulers accountable, and achieve legitimacy through community-based action.

One of the challenges of democracy is to find the right balance in pursuing “the common good” which has dual (and often competing) arms. One arm is communitarian well-being and the other, individual well-being.