• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Susannah Fox

I help people navigate health and technology.

  • Home
  • Rebel Health
  • Blog
    • greatest hits
    • beauty and wonder
    • demographics
    • featured commenters
    • health data
    • key people
    • peer-to-peer health care
    • positive patterns
    • public Q&A
    • trends & principles
  • Research
    • How Young People Use Digital Media to Manage Their Health
    • Digital Health Practices Among Teens and Young Adults: Key Findings
    • Fact sheet: teens and young adults, social media, online health resources
    • Fact sheet: differences between young women and young men in their use of social media, online health resources
    • Pew Research: Americans’ Data Worries
  • About me
    • Now
    • Curriculum vitae
  • Events

Physician, Teacher, Farmer–Susannah Fox

June 18, 2008 By Susannah Fox 1 Comment

Alan Greene emailed this dispatch from Italy:

While attending the 16th IFOAM Organic World Congress, Cheryl and I met a delightful man from the Netherlands named Martien Lankester, executive director of Avalon. He is a physician, teacher, and organic farmer. He remarked that doctors should become more like teachers, teaching people about health rather than just prescribing medicines; teachers should become more like farmers, planting seeds of wonder in their students rather than just giving information; and farmers should become more like doctors, healing the soil rather than just harvesting crops.

I like taking all three roles together as one metaphor of Participatory Medicine — all of us acting as physician, teacher, and farmer at once — teaching people about their health, so they can care for each other and be their own primary care providers, planting seeds of wonder about our own bodies and about the interaction of our bodies with the biosphere, and nurturing the growth of healthy habits and healthy environments for us all.

Filed Under: positive patterns

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. e-Patient Dave says

    June 19, 2008 at 10:21 am

    That’s INSPIRED, Alan! Wonderful!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

Explore

Don't miss a post

Enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Topics

  • Beauty and Wonder
  • Demographics
  • Key People
  • Participatory Research
  • Peer-to-Peer Health Care
  • Positive Patterns
  • Public Q&A
  • Trends and Principles

Recent Comments

  • Susannah Fox on Pre-order Rebel Health: “Yay!!! Thanks, Craig!” Sep 6, 12:59
  • Craig on Pre-order Rebel Health: “THANK YOU! Glad my pre-order is *in* and I can look forward to a fabulous package in the mail come…” Sep 6, 11:06
  • Susannah Fox on Patient-led innovation: “That’s awesome! Thank you, David.” Aug 13, 13:02

Copyright Susannah Fox © 2023 · WordPress · Log in