A bad death: the importance of truth-telling at end-of-life

Conditions
April 19, 2022

“Death would not be called bad, O people, if one knew how to truly die.”
— Nanak

Her funeral was yesterday, and there was a huge turn-out. She was 67 and never cussed or said a bad word about anyone. She was much-friended and well-loved. In late January 2022, she was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer in her lungs, which metastasized to her liver and bones. At first, some medico used the word …

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A bad death: the importance of truth-telling at end-of-life

Looking across the glass door: a COVID-19 vigil

Conditions
April 18, 2022

A small piece of lint is tickling my nose as I am desperately trying not to sneeze into the tight-fitting mask on my face. I know that I will not be able to adjust the mask as my gloves are sterile, and I am standing suspended over a patient’s body with my gloves patinaed with small drips of blood mixed with an antiseptic. The procedure is challenging as the patient …

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Looking across the glass door: a COVID-19 vigil

Reduce your loneliness, improve your well-being, and take the first step

Conditions
April 18, 2022

Just before the pandemic, I walked 96 miles (154.5 km) in seven days on the West Highland Way in Scotland, though I was hardly alone in this endeavor. About 250 people start the walk each day, including the amazing group of primary women that I walked with, indicative of both the attraction of the trail and the popularity of this form of physical activity.

All types of people were walking. There …

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Reduce your loneliness, improve your well-being, and take the first step

We are the voice of reason, the scientific experts, and the advocates for our patients

Conditions
April 15, 2022

These last two years have been extremely challenging for most health care professionals. Watching society challenge essential health and science principles that we have known to be fact has been difficult to bear. Being villainized, health care workers went from being hailed “health care heroes” to being the target of hate, violence, and disregard.

These past few years have been a year of reckoning in many ways. The COVID-19 pandemic has …

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We are the voice of reason, the scientific experts, and the advocates for our patients

A tale of 2 nurses

Conditions
April 15, 2022

There is no denying that we live and work in some extraordinarily trying times. Cast your eyes in the direction of any streaming news source, and another breaking story that describes the catastrophic dumpster fire of the current state of the U.S. health care industry will jump out at you.

The weight of this downward spiral, coupled with staggering workloads, makes it almost impossible for those struggling in the front lines …

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A tale of 2 nurses

It’s time to focus on non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia

Conditions
April 14, 2022

Pneumonia is the deadliest of all hospital-acquired infections in the United States, costs 3 billion dollars per year and is the leading cause of new antibiotic initiation in hospitals. Hospital-acquired pneumonia is classified as either ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) or non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia (NVHAP). For the past 15 years, VAP has dominated our attention, resulting in the wide implementation of evidence-based prevention strategies that have …

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It’s time to focus on non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia

A surprising way to create safer, more efficient patient care

Conditions
April 13, 2022

For practicing physicians, inclusivity proves critical.

Not because of HR mandates. Not because it’s a good thing to do.

Inclusivity improves your patients’ care. It enables you to be a better doctor.

Rising complexity, rapid change, and treating far-flung patients mean physicians need information from all angles of care.

Physicians need to know that everyone participating in your patients’ care can tell you vital information. They must feel safe and comfortable communicating with you …

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A surprising way to create safer, more efficient patient care

Stunning new medical conditions overlooked!

Conditions
April 4, 2022

This article is satire.

The DSM-5-TR came out in March with some shocking omissions.  Here submitted are a few new conditions the next version might include:

Animaculism: the state of joy that comes from the care and companionship of nonverbal creatures, with subtypes for canine, feline, bovine, avian, piscine, exotic, and even serpentine.

Hyperfurrification: being covered in exogenous pet hair

Itchymaskanosis: an acquired hallucination, the sense of an invisible nose tickle as if from …

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Stunning new medical conditions overlooked!

If we better manage diabetes, can we better manage COVID?  

Conditions
April 1, 2022

Over their lifetimes, adults in the United States have a 40% chance of developing type 2 diabetes. And the likelihood for Latino adults is 25% higher. Even worse, Latinos develop type 2 diabetes when younger, and experience more severe complications and higher hospitalizations.

The stark disparities of type 2 diabetes reveal how cultural and social factors affect disadvantaged populations. As a case in point, managing diabetes is more difficult for patients …

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If we better manage diabetes, can we better manage COVID?  

Will Smith’s slap is a trauma response

Conditions
March 30, 2022

This is what the result of unresolved trauma looks like.

What we witnessed Will Smith do in assaulting Chris Rock during the Academy Award ceremony was a trauma response.

While I am in no way condoning violence, this is a very public and important opportunity for us to understand what a trauma response can look like.

A trauma response can take many forms and look like:

  • Slapping someone for saying “the wrong” thing.

    • …

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Will Smith’s slap is a trauma response

Death of a nurse: a soliloquy

Conditions
March 29, 2022

It’s not what you think. It’s not my actual mortality.

It’s that emotional death.

Of being a nurse.

If you’ve never been a nurse. Then you will never know.

It’s that’s giving of yourself: heart and soul.

Constantly and forever.

It’s not being with your family for Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas.

It’s not being able to go to the bathroom or even take a 30-minute break in 12 to 13 hours.

It’s being surrounded by bully nurses …

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Death of a nurse: a soliloquy

Food allergies are a growing public health concern, not a joke

Conditions
March 25, 2022

I was truly gutted when watching the recent Saturday Night Live that joked about nut allergies. My son Joshua, who is 16 years old, has an anaphylactic peanut allergy. I found the segment to be insensitive to the millions of people globally who live each day with food allergies, an invisible but potentially fatal disease.

How do I explain to my son that it is OK to make …

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Food allergies are a growing public health concern, not a joke

We are not defined by what we eat

Conditions
March 24, 2022

Throughout history, ancient tribes practiced cannibalism with the intent of bolstering their own courage or energy by consuming their defeated enemies. They wanted to be what they ate: full of courage and vigor. They would even eat their enemies to vanquish their energetic spirits before they ascended to the afterlife.

Christian Communion also practices the consumption of the figurative blood and body of Christ. It serves as a remembrance …

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We are not defined by what we eat

The invisibility of mental illness

Conditions
March 23, 2022

While the mental illness patient is afflicted by very real and painful feelings, these feelings are internal and not visible to others. The indications of the condition then, whether those of depression, anxiety, or even hallucinations, can be said to be invisible to observers — family, doctor, etc. — in fact, to everyone other than that individual sufferer of mental illness.

A constellation of signs and symptoms is often used to …

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The invisibility of mental illness

Strategies to help women advocate for themselves and avoid misdiagnosis

Conditions
March 20, 2022

While everyone faces some risk of experiencing a delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis, some studies have found that the problem is more common for women. Women are 50 percent more likely than men to receive an incorrect diagnosis when they’re having a heart attack and nearly 30 percent more likely to receive an incorrect diagnosis for stroke. They are also diagnosed with cancer more than two years later …

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Strategies to help women advocate for themselves and avoid misdiagnosis

Why it’s time to use our voices

Conditions
March 19, 2022

Until recently, I have remained relatively silent in the realm of eating disorder advocacy and silenced by the exhaustion of my own lived experience with an eating disorder. However, my silence further contributed to the pain. So now, I speak. And as I speak, I will reflect on the issues that led to my former silence and why we must use our voices.

The need for this work was validated during …

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Why it’s time to use our voices

10 colorectal pearls for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

Conditions
March 18, 2022

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Share these gems with your family, friends, and patients. Take the time to reflect on your personal history and encourage yourself and others to get screened when appropriate.

1. The large intestine or the large bowel consists of the colon, rectum, and anus. The colon and rectum have a cumulative length of 150 cm or 4.9 feet.

2. Gastrointestinal contents are received from the small bowel …

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10 colorectal pearls for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

We are behavioral health nurses and we want to thank our public safety officers (PSOs)

Conditions
March 16, 2022

We are nurses. We are in highly dangerous and volatile units at hospitals. We are not working in a prison. We work in behavioral health. The intensive management unit, the adolescent unit, the dual-diagnosis unit, and the behavioral health emergency department.

We are specially trained to protect ourselves and others with CPI — a mandatory nonviolent crisis intervention training. We have patients who are schizophrenic, bipolar, drug addicts, with assault charges, …

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We are behavioral health nurses and we want to thank our public safety officers (PSOs)

Ubuntu philosophy in health care

Conditions
March 14, 2022

Over the past few decades, we have seen a huge swing in our patients’ perceived quality of health care. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, individualism in health care has been taken to an extreme. Because of misinformation from non-medical sources, autonomy, which was expected to lead to a more medically educated public, has instead resulted in widespread mistrust of the medical establishment. With that, many if not all …

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Ubuntu philosophy in health care

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