1. He is very smart, and balanced.
2. He is young.
3. He is a self-made person. He embodies the “American dream”
4. He is truly international, vocationally and personally.
5. He has proven to make correct decisions in the past, not fearing to face the mainstream, dominant, “patriotic” thought.
6. He does not play “dirty-politics” against his opponents.
7. He inspires people. He is a leader able to put diverse people together.
8. Contrary to what his opponents argue, he is plenty of specific policies for the main issues the nation faces. As far as I could observe I realized he has meaningful policies on health care, student debt, NAFTA, religion&school, Foreign policy, Irak, etc, etc. Just take a look to his website.
9. His campaign is mainly financed by small donations coming from ordinary people.
10. He talks more about his projects that about his opponents.
11. He opposes the view of a Congress ruled by lobbies. His making explicit this view puts him against the lobbies so that they dislike him and he would be even more encouraged to pursue his promise. Understood what I mean?
12. And most importantly, he seems to have deep values.

In my –simplistic- opinion there are two types of health diseases: those in which research has found a solution (or at least a good treatment), and those that are still under research, with no significant progress made over the course of time. In the second group one may find several types of cancer like pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and malignant brain tumours. Available treatments for patients are not fulfilling the hope of a cure, or at least of converting them into chronic diseases.

A lot of research is being done in those diseases; however there is an important barrier some doctors and researchers are facing: they have not enough cases to work with. This issue is especially relevant in those severe diseases that are not very frequent among population, like malignant brain tumours. There is not enough critical mass in a town or a city to research about malignant brain tumours; however the number of cases country-wide is significant enough as to be in the agenda of cancer researchers.

I have met few doctors and researchers who are on the frontline of fighting malignant brain tumours (astrocytoma, glioblastoma, etc.) and they say the same: “we do not have enough cases” to work with. On the other side, there are thousands of generalist oncologists out there with patients suffering from the same disease. Those doctors/oncologists are not specialised in that type of disease so that they decide to apply standard, conservative treatments that are proven to not to work as good as the sort of treatments/approaches that any specialised doctor would use. In other words, there is a lot of non-standard medicine (but proven to be useful) that is under-used just because generalist doctors feel uncomfortable about applying it to their patients, and those doctors prefer to be conservative.

I am not saying that there are good doctors or bad doctors (although there may be), what I am saying is that there are doctors who do that disease 100% of their time, and others who do it 5% of their time. Specialised oncologists get better results (less mortality, longer survival period, better quality of life, etc.) than generalist oncologists.

For the patient, health care tends to be a “black box”. The patient and his/her family believe that once the patient is within the public health system, he/she is going to be treated the same regardless the doctor or the medical centre that is treating him/her. For testicle cancer it might be the case, but for brain tumours I do not think it is.

In the USA, where the health system is private, when a medical centre gets reputation of providing better medical solutions for a type of disease, patients tend to choose that centre so it rapidly gets more cases and the research process accelerates, setting the foundation of more successful findings.

In Europe however, due to our public system’s structure, and to our “black box” mindset, when a medical centre finds some advance, patients rapidly expect to get that advance implemented in their nearest oncology centre. Patients not only expect, they assume it is going to happen. Patients are not aware that medical breakthroughs take years to be standardised all across the health system. That is a long time, a time the patient might not have to fight his disease.

What I suggest is trying to modify the European health systems (without touching their core philosophy) so that it is possible for any European citizen to choose his/her medical centre for a selected group of diseases. If a Spanish brain tumour patient decides to be operated in a –public- clinic in Marburg (Germany), so the Spanish health system cover it the same as if it was done in Spain. If a British pancreatic cancer decides to be operated in a public hospital in Málaga (Spain), so the same applies. As far as I know currently the local health systems only reimburse health treatments carried out in other countries if is because of an emergency and there was no chance to come to the original country for treatment (i.e. holydays, travelling, etc.). Unofficially –however- it is possible to carry out tricks (the Government usually closes its eyes to those tricks) and get the right to choose and get a reimbursement, but I truly feel that the correct approach is making it feasible by law.

This proposed approach would be a sort of “Erasmus program”, but for patients instead of students. It would complement the actual systems in place, enhancing them in terms of providing better health for patients, and fostering medical research.

The success of this EU program (plus the usual EU partners, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, etc.) would rely not only on the EU directive that would regulate it, but on the mass media campaign to be carried out in each country. Citizens must understand that health systems have their limits, and that the EU is working to improve them by giving more options to choose a medical centre.

Note: this post has been written in a train from Lausanne (Switzerland) to Hannover (Germany), in a happy day for me since one of my closest relatives is getting advantage of brain tumours top notch medical research, what has resulted in very encouraging outcomes.

Enzo Ferrari used to say that his favourite Ferrari is the one to be relesed…I do not understand how these guys are able to design cars more and more beautiful over time.

Enjoy (click to see the picture wide-open)