Chapter Eleven. All in the Family

CHAPTER IN PROGRESS

     "When you no longer cure, than it's time to care." The family and the doctor's obligations to his patient's family. This is particularly important with pediatric patients, the terminally ill, and the mentally challenged. The growing problems with mental health illness and the role of the family.
A brief history of the family unit over the last few decades: a new genre of health problems stemming from a society marked by an epidemic of Marriage/Separation/Divorce" driven by lawyers, social workers, even certain medical professionals, the legal system, and the media. This epidemic of family instability has given rise to an increased incidence of depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, alcoholism, and domestic violence.

     Childhood safety must begin in the home with parental responsibility and accountability (so increasingly lacking). However, special interest groups, exercising a powerful influence on government and the media, have already permitted the availability of alcohol, tobacco, prescription medication, and guns and weapons to today's youth, and this has invariably contributed to this hemisphere becoming the leading global forerunner rank in homicide and suicide rates, seconded only to motor vehicle accidents.