photo Sandra Lory

Resilience is a word heard that is talked about more and more. David Orr, who says resilience is the chief characteristic of sustainability, defines it as “the capacity of the system to absorb disturbance; to undergo change and still retain essentially the same function, structure, and feedbacks”.

In terms of health and wellness, this means systems of healing and medicine that can endure a breakdown of day-to-day operation: i.e. transportation, power, communication and more are disrupted, and these clinics and hospitals can still keep people well. That’s a tall order and not one our current healthcare systems are capable of managing in an ongoing way.

So we thought we’d generate a list of characteristics of how resiliency looks in medicine. Below is a list suggested by Rosemary Gladstar at the Beaming Bioneers Vermont conference.

• Availability of medicine
• Backyard medicine
• Diversity of practice