Dear Corporate Personhood, …


What has been your experience with large corporate entities? Are you just a cog in the wheel or do you have a voice?

I now have experienced the soullessness of corporations. I may be just a little cog in their wheel, but I have an effect.

The recession caught up to my small health care business. We held out for a long time. I will not close my doors, but I do need to supplement my income. So I sought outside employment to lower my debt ratio.

My plan was to work for a company in which I would not get attached. So the large national corporation that offered me a job seemed like a win-win. I would work for them for as long as it took to pay off my debts doing assessments of the elderly and making recommendations to their primary care providers. A public service without the strings.

I did cause some waves, I must admit. I was shocked at the misinformation of this huge national company who hired nurse practitioners and physicians. They clearly did not know the individual state practice acts. Their contracts left much to be desired. I was just protecting myself…but felt it my duty to my colleagues to offer suggestions of change within the corporation to better protect the health care providers.

And after a month of jumping through hoops for them and just a few days before I was to start work, I got a voicemail. Apparently the position no longer existed. Not because I made waves, but because they counted their chickens before they hatched. Their California client pulled out after waiting five months for them to fill the position.

Hmmm. I felt strangely relieved, yet wondered why? And did not receive an answer, nor closure, nor condolences. I expected more. They were so friendly and available before I got the voicemail.

So I drafted a letter to them…


To Whom It May Concern;


In an effort to seek closure, I am writing this letter.

As a nurse practitioner with 25 years experience, I have assessed, diagnosed and treated thousands of patients. I have helped birth infants into this world and the elderly and infirmed through death. And I have always been fully present in every healing situation. So with presence, I reached out to those who guided me through the process of employment within this national corporation. And I am grateful to each end every one of them for their kind assistance.

This is my first experience of employment with a national corporation. Corporations may have legal personhood, but this one, at least, seems to have no soul. I have yet to receive condolence, explanation, or compensation.

As an entrepreneur, I have created an entity with soul. My employees are well cared for, listened to, and taken seriously. They are not a means to an end, but the spirit of my practice. I am grateful to be reminded that my choice to open a small business and keep it running during the recession has been best for all of us.

During our long interactions, I do believe that your corporation has benefitted. I was the first part-time employee to bring to your attention the lack of clarity in your contract. Which I was told would be rewritten.

I was also the first who alerted you that your California Nurse Practitioner-Physician Collaboration Agreement does not adequately reflect the state practice act for either nurse practitioners or physicians and thus as written puts both parties at risk. I hope you change this as soon as possible.

I take responsibility for believing in your national corporation, for rushing to fulfill all that was asked of me as a contracted employee, for taking time away from my own business, and paying for legal counsel before signing your contract.

In the month it took to fulfill all that you required of me to prepare for employment—hours of filling out paperwork for credentialing, inoculations for health clearance, submitting to you my banking and identity information—all of which I completed by your deadlines—I have missed out on four weeks of income from the job I refused once I signed on with you.

I am sure your employment process is the same for everyone. Yet I was informed that the situation that happened to me was quite unusual. So I can only assume that you do not have a policy to deal with it.

At the very least, I wish acknowledgment that you have destroyed all my sensitive information.

Clearly it is not meant for me to work with you. If there is a next time, I will insist on a sign-on bonus. Executives with less responsibility for public well being receive sign on bonuses to make it worth their while. Nurse practitioners must have a higher sense of self to be valued by all employers, even national corporations. Especially those that base their profit margin on the services rendered by nurse practitioners.

I serve on the Past Presidents Council of the California Association of Nurse Practitioners representing 14,000 nurse practitioners and will be speaking at the annual educational conference in March regarding business practices. I am grateful for what I have learned in this experience yet am concerned for my colleagues should they choose to seek employment with your corporation.

I hope you make the necessary adjustments to policy so that another potential employee is not adversely affected.

I’m sorry that I cannot recommend your company to my colleagues. I wish you success in helping those you serve—patients.


Sincerely;


Deborah Maragopoulos MN APRN BC, FNP
Intuitive Integrative Medicine
Full Circle Family Health
www.genesisgold.com


I have spent my life creating change. Being a pioneer. Walking down unknown paths, finding the pitfalls, and alerting those who might follow. I am an effective patient advocate and a voice for my colleagues. I created change as President of the California Association of Nurse Practitioners. I created change for patients by providing integrative medical choices when I opened my own practice in 1997. And now I am creating change in voicing my concern.

Health Care Reform is needed….for all our sakes…patients and providers alike.

We need choices from the best of conventional and complementary medicine.

We need freedom to choose what is best for us, for our patients, not be tied to insurers’ treatment protocols.

We need to educate our patients especially on the health care choices that are within their control…but first we need to educate ourselves on natural means to healing and how to help our patients heal themselves.

We need to stop creating dependency on prescriptions, on myopic assessments that force the patients to come back over and over milking the system, when time spent educating rather than medicating would heal them and be much more cost effective.

We need to remember as health care providers that we do not heal our patients, but are instruments in their healing process.

We need as patients to empower ourselves, take responsibility for our health choices, and learn to listen to our bodies’ innate wisdom.

We need to work together—patients and providers—with the goal of optimal health and wellbeing.

We need to start NOW!

I’ve been dancing with death. I believe that death begats birth…and I appreciate the tender new soul growth emerging from the soil of loss. Truly I understand the circle of life…yet my heart grieves still…

Before we could bury Gran, I had to attend another funeral.

Just one day after Gran passed; I chose to join my husband’s family at the beach. One of Gran’s favorite places. But they gathered without me…instead I drove 95 miles from the foggy coast to the high desert to see a patient.

I don’t usually make house calls. Most of my patients live 50 or miles from me. Some are out of the country. So making house calls is not really practical. But I did this time.

Anita is one of my favorites…not that I should have favorite patients…but we have been working together for almost four years…really tough healing work, the kind that shifts the soul…hers and mine. Anita has cancer.

She came to me for a spiritual healing. Her cancer had advanced and her family thought this was it. I asked her. “Do you want to live or are you ready to die? Either way I’ll help you.” She chose life. So I did my best to help her live.

Nearly four years of research, trying the best in alternative care—that was her desire—and integrating with some conventional therapies...the best of both worlds. It was a rollercoaster ride—thrilling and scary. I am not a cancer specialist. I’m a hormone specialist. But I’m really good at medical detective work. And I favor the underdog. I hate when patients are not given choices. So I try to investigate the root cause of their dis-ease and usually find something we can work on. Sometimes the root is physical. Sometimes it’s psychological. Always I dig up spiritual roots.

So in our very first consultation, I got to the heart of the matter. Clearly there was not time to waste with stage IV head and neck cancer. The conventional physicians she had consulted had not given her much hope…so she explored alternative treatments on her own. It’s sad that we don’t integrate medicine as much as we should. We are all on the wheel of health care together…why can’t we partner?

Well, at least my patients are willing to partner with me. And as far as I’m concern, it’s their dance. They pick the music, I follow their lead. And I love to dance! And I haven’t met anyone I can’t partner with on the dance floor. The secret is being open to receive them. Same with patients…if I am open to receive them…our dance is harmonious.

So I danced with Anita. Followed her lead through the slow laborious melodies and the rapid tumultuous tunes. It was always her dance, not mine. Not that I didn’t have to remind myself on more than one occasion. Like last year, just before her daughter’s wedding. We were nearly there…having accomplished the last of her goals. She wanted to attend her daughter’s wedding as healthy and happy as possible. And all looked well…except I had a niggling worry. One that wouldn’t stop pestering me. Her daughter’s wedding was what she was living for…there was nothing beyond seeing her daughter all grown up, graduated from college and happily married.

So I brought Anita home…Yes, I work at home…in an office on my property, surrounded by healing herb gardens and great energy…but never had I invited a patient to stay with me, until Anita. It was a deep healing journey for both of us. I helped her discover where her “death wish” originated. We all unconsciously and sometimes consciously direct our bodies towards dis-ease. Sometimes towards death. It begins as a belief that manifests in our body as dis-ease. Anita had hers…and I felt that my job was to enlighten her…then help her reverse the “death wish” and replace it with a “life wish”. That meant finding her purpose.

She named a possible purpose…yet before she left I asked what she learned…and her “purpose” had not stuck… She said, “Being with you, watching you take care of yourself while you take care of me, makes me realize that I’m not taking care of myself as well as I could be.”

Anita taught me a crucial lesson. BEING is more important than DOING. Walking my Talk…Being my Truth. Taking excellent care of myself physically, emotionally, spiritually left the deepest impression on Anita. When we parted, she thanked me. The following month, she attended her only daughter’s wedding—as whole as possible in the face of her disease—pain-free, able to dance all night, as she wished.

And afterwards her health diminished. Plagued by complications of metastatic cancer, she rallied for months. She tried a promising alternative therapy, yet the cancer progressed. I hesitated to order that last MRI. I knew she didn’t want to know. And we discovered the worst—the cancer had spread to her brain.

It was time to let her go…to follow yet another path…this time to a major medical center. A path she had resisted…yet at the end she had to try one more possibility. I knew the specialists would want to try more than she believed in…so I went to the hospital to see her before surgery…to be sure she understood that it was palliative, not curative. She understood but had to do it for her family…to show she tried…everything…even though she was tired…even though she was scared. That was the last time I saw her walking and talking…clear headed…determined…yet knowing there was more. She wasn’t quite ready to go then, but she had accepted her death and felt the extra time would help her daughter let her go. And the last ditch effort to save her would help her husband feel they had exhausted all possibilities. She told me then that she did not want to die in the hospital…reminded me of her wishes…and thanked me for my care.

Over the last three months, she was enmeshed in conventional cancer treatment. The specialists kept telling her everything looked good…but our phone consults, the reports from the visiting nurse, the lab reports told another story. I knew she was dying but her family did not. So I went to her home to help them let her go.

All the way there I reminded myself why I had become a Family Nurse Practitioner. This was the circle of life. I birth them and death them…it’s a dance of midwifery into the body and out of the body. Yet still it’s hard to let go.

When I arrived, Anita’s husband let out a great sigh of relief. I could feel the heavy burden he had carried for so long. I gave him a hug and greeted her daughter and son-in-law. They too were delighted to see me...and escorted me to Anita’s room.

Anita was a lilac flame…a bright and beautiful energy…very loving, a bit tender, yet strong willed. But that night her brilliance had faded. The energy of the dying fades back to white. Hers had concentrated in her heart chakra only a faintly purple glow. She didn’t have much time.

Carefully I examined her, describing to her family what I saw. Anita was resting, not comfortably and was barely lucid. Gently I explained the process of death. What would happen to her physically, mentally and energetically. They wanted to know why the doctors had not told them the truth. Just two days before, she had radiation and they had to cancel that day’s appointment. Clearly she couldn’t go. Clearly…

As hard as it is for me to let my patients go, it’s harder for doctors. Death is seen as a failure in medicine. Anita’s husband felt the same. “I don’t know what to do if I can’t fix it.”

I reassured him that they had done everything possible, but now it was Anita’s time to leave her body. I suggested things that they could do for her to help her be more comfortable and how to be with her energetically. I told them their job now was to imprint themselves with her energy, so when she chooses to come to them, they would more easily receive her. Her husband wasn’t sure about what I was describing, but I could feel his desire to know.

Her daughter got excited by the possibility and remarked how strange it was that Anita seemed to be seeing things. I perceived the energy of Anita’s mother, dead now some 20 years, in the room as soon as I entered. I smiled, “Of course, that’s your grandmother! And we’re tripping over a big dog that won’t leave your mother’s side.” Her daughter cried, “That must be Savannah! She died just before Mom came to you.”

At that moment, Anita opened her eyes and nodded vigorously. Weakly, she waved me to her. I leaned close and she barely grasped my arm and whispered, “Thank you.”

Anita died just thirty hours later. We got hospice involved just in time so the family had support. In fact, I believe her husband was finally able to let her go when he signed the hospice paperwork the next morning. I called the team who worked with her…my collaborating physician, the dedicated pharmacist, the caring nurse. Tears flowed for all of us…as we supported one another…but for Anita…she was free of her pain, finally.

Her memorial service was so well attended…she had asked her sisters-in-law to organize a family reunion that weekend. She never made it, but they were all there to say goodbye.
Her family spoke eloquently with pictures of Anita as a young woman floating in the background. But it was her husband’s choice of music that touched my soul…

“The Dance” by Garth Brooks…”I’m glad that I didn’t know.. the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance. I could of missed the pain, but I would had to miss the dance.”

Thank you, Anita, for allowing me to dance with you.