Health Care in F Minor

This article, Health Care in F Minor, first appeared in California Healthcare News on July, 10, 2018.

baby-grand-piano_135“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Emil Frankl

The Opening

With four flat notes, the scale of F minor celebrates sadness while commanding infinite visceral responses to all seven tones.  The English language, on the other hand, offers only a handful of anagrams for these same seven letters, although its best effort can only make use of five. Music creates emotional snowflakes, so we forego the need to reconcile different sounds made by the piano and its 2,500 parts.  The Scrabble enthusiast, however, best performs with only two combinations, each scoring a paltry 11 points.

Comparing expression through word or song does not reveal one better than the other, although it may present certain challenges when the piano holds a conversation with the clerk at the neighborhood market.  My five-year old son offers at least one solution, even if he is unable to spell the two high-rolling Scrabble words “decaf” and “faced.” Upon hearing an F minor scale for the first time, he turned to me and said: “Papa, that is so sad.”

Second Movement: The Problem

If health care was a piano, acute care hospitals and their 14,400 different codes under the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, tenth edition (“ICD-10”) practice C major scales on a regular basis. … Read more →