Patient

Both patients and physicians need to communicate in the exam room

Beth Austin

Patient

June 15, 2012

Today’s healthcare consumers are increasingly asked to take a more participatory role in their care. For many this is a daunting task, even if the patient relishes the role. There are a myriad of issues undermining patient-physician communication – such as time constraints, lack of comfort with the subject matter, lack of shared language, or even fear – that can make the task of being an empowered patient …

Physician disrespect impedes patient safety

Jessie Gruman, PhD

Patient

June 12, 2012

“I just love working here!” my nurse told me. “We have great supervision, I have wonderful colleagues – we all help each other in an emergency. The doctors are really responsive and I feel like I am doing important work. I thought I would only stay for a year because oncology is so hard, but I’ve been here ten and I still love it.”

This is what we want to hear …

Can you handle being the first to know your own test results?

Barbara Bronson Gray, RN

Patient

June 7, 2012

There’s a push-pull happening right now in the evolution of health care and it’s all about you. The question under debate is simple: can you handle being the first to know your own test results?

Are you smart enough to read the results? And are you emotionally capable of handling the situation?

Do you need someone next to you when an over-the-counter test tells you whether or not you have a disease? Can …

Reflecting on the first AA meeting

Nonmaleficence

Patient

June 5, 2012

I recently attended my first AA meeting. It surpassed many of my expectations; however it ruined others and left me slightly dumbfounded.

My imagination, with the help of television and movies, painted a picture in my mind of what an AA meeting would be like. It portrayed a room filled with people that obviously looked like addicts; unkempt appearances, borderline offensive hygiene, and at least one person emitting a radiance of …

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Reflecting on the first AA meeting

The power of engaging peer-to-peer health care

Carolyn Thomas

Patient

June 5, 2012

As I like to remind my women’s heart health presentation audiences, I am not a physician. I’m not a nurse. I am merely a dull-witted heart attack survivor. I also warn them that a lot of what I’m about to say to them is already available out there, likely printed on some wrinkled-up Heart and Stroke Foundation brochure stuffed into the magazine rack at their doctor’s office.

So when the organizer …

One simple question that is the essence of medicine

Steven Lucas, MBA

Patient

May 25, 2012

A friend recently told me his daughter has been accepted into medical school with hopes of becoming a pediatrician. Along with this accomplishment will come $250,000.00 in debt.

I could not help but think of how her educational experience and future practice model will be so different from those who hold leadership positions in medicine today. Tablet computers will replace books and she will live in a 24/7 wired world.

I came …

How death can be a beautiful experience

Tracy Granzyk, MS

Patient

May 18, 2012

I was honored to be part of a beautiful experience in late January of 2011. It was the death of my mother-in-law at the direction of Trinity Hospice in Aiken, SC. Having never thought I would describe death as beautiful the word choice comes as a surprise even to me, a Sagittarius and straight shooter, and in combination with mother-in-law, I would also guess, very suspect. However, sharing in her …

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How death can be a beautiful experience

What meaningful encouragement can be given to someone who is dying?

Taruni Tan

Patient

May 16, 2012

Theirs is a lonely journey; to be moving towards the separation and end of all things known and loved.

Being with a dying person is challenging; it penetrates through discomfort seeking honesty and courage. It brings you confrontationally into the present which is shocking for many. But if you spend time with the dying you’ll find that their needs are not so different from ours, only they have a limited time …

Health care journalists have tendencies similar to those of doctors

Katherine Leon

Patient

May 13, 2012

As a patient who was asked to speak at the Association of Health Care Journalists 2012 conference, I felt a bit covert. I wasn’t in a “backless gown,” rolling my IV pole down the hall of some hospital’s cardiac care unit. I wore an official lanyard and badge and mixed among health care journalists, yet I felt more like a dugout mom than savvy reporter.

My goal was to present the …

Adaptation can be painful, but it can also be a gift

Maria Ross

Patient

May 11, 2012

Nothing will force you to live life on your own terms faster than almost losing it.

In 2008, I was on fire. My husband and I had just moved, bought a house, adopted a dog – and I started my own consulting business while continuing to write and act in my spare time. Life was crazy because I was trying to live all of my dreams – at the same time.

While …

Embracing the longing without the outcome

Taruni Tan

Patient

May 7, 2012

I’m not sure when I stopped missing my husband. I suppose familiarity crept in after 7 years together and I rarely felt the pining, agitated pain of separation that I relished in the early days of our passionate love.

Running our restaurant from waking to sleep, 6 days a week meant that we were rarely apart. So JP had become as familiar to me as my 4 limbs, an essential part …

Minimize reactance in your health organization

Steve Wilkins, MPH

Patient

May 7, 2012

Can you say “reactance”? Don’t feel bad, I wasn’t familiar with the term either until recently. But as you will see, anyone that has ever been a patient will catch on pretty quickly as to what reactance is and how it works.

Reactance is how we respond to something that threatens to limit or eliminate our behavioral freedom. I recently experienced reactance in the course of “prepping” for a colonoscopy. The …

Is managed care worth the price of a life?

Kristy Jensch

Patient

May 4, 2012

The first time I met Tom his head was on the table at the Christmas banquet held by the mental health support program where I worked. He was sitting next to his wife, who worked on the staff.

Tom’s alcoholism soon brought him into the program, fractured his marriage, and I became his first case manager. The alcoholism had roots in childhood abuse. Years of drinking followed, with hospitalizations, chaos and …

Long waits at the doctor’s office disrespect patients

Barbara Bronson Gray, RN

Patient

May 1, 2012

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
-William Shakespeare, Richard II

A friend recently asked me a simple question: Why do we have to wait so long for doctors and not for other professionals, like lawyers, accountants, or dentists? And what can we do about it?

A study by Press Ganey showed that the average time patients spend waiting to see their health provider is 24 minutes. The research was done …

Asking about price is an essential part of a patient’s responsibility

Suzanne Nesmith

Patient

May 1, 2012

My husband and I have been self-employed for many years, and though our income is quite limited, we have always been careful with our finances, have always managed to live within our means, and have always paid our bills without assistance. We had private health insurance coverage and saw premium increases each year. Then to avoid further increases, coverage of office visits outside of deductible was dropped, and our deductible was raised to $4500. Finally, …

Patient advocates need to manage expectations

Trisha Torrey

Patient

April 29, 2012

Consider this scenario.

Joan, age 75, living in Ft. Lauderdale, was diagnosed with Stage IV Ovarian Cancer. Joan’s daughter, Beth, who lives in Kansas, contacts Maxine, a private patient advocate and RN who works in Ft. Lauderdale, to help her mother. Joan, Beth and Maxine have extensive conversations about the care Joan will need. The decision is made that Joan will need surgery and chemo. Maxine is hired to oversee the …

The healing power of ice cream

Dr. Martin Young

Patient

April 22, 2012

The phone conversation, as my dad, in the bed next door, recalls it, went something like this.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Jim? Where are you?”

“No, it’s not Jim. I’m John, and I’m in hospital.”

“Oh sorry, John, I was looking for Jim the refrigerator mechanic. Wrong number. Hope you’re okay!”

“I’m not okay. Just had both my knees replaced and I’m very sore.”

“John, I’m sorry. I got problems too. I run an ice cream …

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The healing power of ice cream

How to create a health culture at home for your kids

Barbara Bronson Gray, RN

Patient

April 20, 2012

Yet another study is out highlighting that kids are getting fatter and they’re hardly moving any more. They get driven to school. They drink soft drinks. They don’t get much milk. They snack a lot. They text and watch video games. The number of obese kids has doubled since the 1970’s, with one in six now officially obese.

But if you really want your kids to be healthy, you have to …

What to say to a newly diagnosed cancer patient

Salli Camphouse

Patient

April 15, 2012

“So, the doctor told me I have breast cancer. I just wanted to let you know. I’m doing fine right now, but I have some decisions to make regarding my treatment options. I’ll keep you posted.”

This may be a typical email sent to family and friends after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis. Sending emails seems more practical at this point. With so many friends and family to update, unless a …

4 perfect questions when facing an end of life situation

Elaine Waples

Patient

April 13, 2012

In the fall of 2010, Atul Gawande, surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, delivered a touching speech at the October New Yorker Festival. My husband attended with a friend and, because he said it so profoundly impacted the audience, I watched it myself on video the next day. It was indeed amazing. Dr. Gawande, author and national health care presence, …

Patient

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