Doctors should help patients fight disease and treat their well-being, too, according to medical journal essay

This is an excerpt fromSecond Opinion, aweeklyroundup of eclectic and under-the-radar health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning.

If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that byclicking here.

An essay in the British Medical Journal urges doctors and patients to start thinking differently about what it means to be returned to health.

Ian Hargraves, lead author of "Towards regeneration: The evolution of medicine from fighting to rebuilding," says he envisions medicine that doesn't stop at the hospital door, but also sets conditions for a healthy life.

As more people live and die with chronic conditions or as survivors of cancer, the emphasis should be on how to live as a healthy person with these conditions, rather than just on treating the disease, saidHargraves, a service designer and researcher with the Mayo Clinic's knowledge and evaluation research unit.

"We should pay attention to what we're building amidst the highly technical process of treatment," he said.

Within health care systems, he envisages having "rehabilitation disciplines integrated within surgical teams to lay the ground for building anew" in patients' lives after they are treated.

"Switching to building health requires the health and the health care systems to work closely together, something that is not existent," Hargraves said.

War metaphors not always helpful for patients

The military metaphors often used in medicine that talk about "fighting" disease or a "battle" with cancer are dated when the "defeat" of an enemy is not achievable, he said. If medicine is couched in terms of winning and losing, patients may be left with a sense of failure if disease persists.

• Why 'warrior' metaphors may not actually comfort cancer patients

"There are times when it might be helpful, or accurate, when you identify a bacteria or something singular with a means to make it go away," Hargraves said.

"But we see in obituaries, 'Joe was a good fighter and died after a battle with Alzheimer's.' The fact is, he's not going to win that one."

Take the heart attack patientwho is admitted to hospital, has a clot removedwith a balloon and stent and is told he is lucky to be alive. He's released with anti-platelet drugs and a prescription for cardiac rehab. His family treats him as if he's fragile and he's afraid to make love to his wife. The diet and exercise changes he needs to make areleft up to him in the longterm.

After the heart attack, preventing another

"Right now, the person leaves the hospital and we're done," said Dr. VictorMontori, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and one of five co-authors of theBMJessay.

"If a person has a heart attack, we treat the heart attack, but they are afraid to have sex again in case they have another heart attack and they die," he said. "Clearly that's a bit of regeneration we didn't do we didn't restore them to sexual health again when they came in with a heart attack."

The medical system needs to work early with the patient to create conditions that will restore normal life functionsand preventanother health crisis, the BMJ article says. That could include working from the start with both the patient and his family ondiet and exercise and counselling the couple to help them get over their fear of physical activity.

"The point is not simply to fight against what you're trying to cure, but almost simultaneously or right after to start rebuilding health,"Montorisaid.

Dealing with 'existential' questions

With the prospect of more regenerative medicine, which can rebuild damaged organs with stem cells or new drugs and technologies,Montorisuggests the rehab process should include linking the patient with an online community of people who have had similar experiences.

"When someone has survived a life-threatening circumstance, a number of existential questions come up,"he said. "It's part of the process of rebuilding to enable the community of that person could be the family, could be an online community to help the person identify what their function in the world is and who they are now they have survived the challenge."

Dr. Robert Maunder, a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto whose specialty is treating people with physical illness, said he agreed with the call for a different way of understanding and thinking about illness.

"I think that's an important conversation to have I'd like to see that change over time," said Maunder, who was not one of the authors of the essay.

"Medicine focuses on disease," he said. "We talk about promoting health and a lot of doctors would like to engage in that, but here they're actually talking about shifting toward a different goal."

To read the entireSecond Opinionnewsletter every Saturday morning,subscribe.