Healing Through Social Media

Salvatore Iaconesi

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/opinion/iaconesi-cure-open-source/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Dear readers,

Please read the article (see above link) on CNN.com, if you have not already.  Salvatore Iaconesi, pictured above, was recently diagnosed with brain cancer.  As an artist, computer geek, and creative individual with a strong sense of personal and communal responsibility, he decided to open up his personal life and medical files to the world to help himself find the best possible treatment for his affliction, which he describes as “a low-grade glioma”.  A friend sent me a link to this article, as she felt I would be interested.  I applaud Mr. Iaconesi’s initiative, as I feel the conventional western health-care industry as primarily promoted in the United States does not take into account the well-being and best interests of the total individual.  Mr. Iaconesi is Italian, and while I am familiar with the French health-care system, I am sure there are differences in the Italian system.  In his article, Mr. Iaconesi explains that traditionally, medical files are not easily opened up and disseminated via the Internet.  He used his computer skills to translate the documents into formats that would make them easily shared, thus also contributing to a future trend or possibility for other patients to make their medical findings shareable on-line.

What is most interesting to me about Mr. Iaconesi’s quest is how he approaches healing.  I find the Internet to be a personification or physical manifestation of the inherent link that all humans share naturally.  We all communicate via telepathic energy, whether we are aware of this fact or not, so the Internet allows us to embrace this connectivity in our conscious lives via technology.  By opening up his medical files to the world, Mr. Iaconesi has encouraged others to encourage him, and an outpouring of love and support has flowed to him.  This is healing in itself.  Beyond the words of moral support which provide healing for his emotional body, Mr. Iaconesi has also received medical information and choices which will allow him to consider possibilities of treatment that were not initially offered to him by the medical establishment that delivered his initial diagnosis.  Social media is a forum which in some ways is a renewal of feminine energy.  People need to communicate and offer one another emotional support.  The healing professions are divided today between alternative, holistic therapies which are most often not covered by mainstream insurance companies, and conventional western medicine, which is hashed into various specialties, focusing on dispensing drugs and surgery rather than examining the total person.  I personally advocate a blending and revamping of the two approaches, which to my mind represent feminine and masculine approaches: the holistic treatments being primarily feminine, and conventional western medicine being focused on aspects of the masculine, such as logical reasoning and action over reflection.  Offering one’s health to the open arms of social media is an attempt to engage society, globally, into a revolution of our health care systems world-wide.  People want change, want to be treated as individuals, and want to be responsible for their own choices regarding their emotional and physical bodies. 

Thank you, Mr. Iaconesi for your courage, creativity, and wisdom.  Your choices are allowing others to take action, open new doors, and provide new opportunities for growth and learning in our health care professions.