Douglas McKee, CRNA
Change the cause.
I’m a nurse anesthetist with more than 50 years in clinical practice. My work asks what we can change in our food, our environment, and our healthcare system to restore health before chronic illness takes hold.
Rio Grande Guardian · Guest column
A Blue Zone Painted Over a Sacrifice Zone
What would it take for economic development in the Rio Grande Valley to help the people who live here be healthier and more able to take part in it?
Explore the work
The Reset Protocol
Start with what cells need to protect and repair themselves. Explore the book’s membrane-first framework and Tripwire, a proposed way to use sleep, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability to flag early changes that should be investigated.
Public Policy
The Modern Pentagram traces the incentives linking agriculture, food production, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and insurance. My proposal starts at the farm. Change the incentives to support growers transitioning to producing nutritious food will decrease healthcare costs and allow the environment to heal.
Community Monitoring
Residents need to help measure air and water pollution, document what they find, and share results with their neighbors, public, and regulators. The Rio Grande Valley proposal puts those decisions in the hands of the people who will be forced to live with the exposure.
Life Is All About Skills
A practical course in the skills we use to build relationships, make decisions, and manage difficult emotions. The quality of our life is dictated by the quality of our life skills. Good skills produce tolerable and sustainable outcomes with few negative emotions.
About Douglas
I began writing about the skills that help people handle anxiety, make better choices, and build close relationships. My health and policy work starts with the same question. What can we change upstream to improve the outcome?