When bad medical news hits, the blow can be devastating.
Shock is almost always the first thing people feel, followed by anger, fear and often a profound sense of sadness.
At times like these it came be extremely difficult to collect your thoughts and decide what to do next. Your head is likely to flood with questions that arrive at various moments – in the middle of the night, in the shower, …
How patients can handle bad medical news
I am a “Gleek.” I admit it.
A Gleek is a self-described lover of Fox’s show, Glee. The show features a diverse group of teens who are in the school’s show choir. Glee focuses on the lives of these teens, in and out of school, while emphasizing certain storyline elements with entertaining Broadway musical-type performances.
The show itself, however, is not the point of this post. Last week was an unexpected …
Using Glee for teachable moments to teens
by Rima Rudd, ScD
We take the written word for granted.
Signs and billboards are everywhere – offering directional information, alerts, warnings, and advertisements. Streets, public squares, buildings, agencies, and institutions are numbered and named. We are surrounded by the written word in public locations and within public and private institutions. Individual entrances and even elevators in some large buildings carry names. The lobby, the inside …
Navigating any health care facility requires sophisticated literacy skills
by Tom Lang and George Lundberg, MD
A not-so-obvious truth is that evidence-based medicine is literature-based medicine.
That is, the quality of the scientific literature directly affects the quality of the evidence.
Quality, in turn, depends in large measure on reporting research completely and accurately.
In response to ample evidence that such quality is often missing from the literature, dozens of reporting guidelines, such as the CONSORT Statement for reporting randomized trials, are …
How the quality of the scientific literature impacts the evidence
Dr. Elvira Aletta is a clinical psychologist with a unique perspective on what it’s like to live with a chronic illness. In her early twenties, she was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome, a rare kidney disease that usually affects young boys. Then in her thirties, she came down with a chronic autoimmune condition called scleroderma.
She’d never heard of that, either. She describes her …
5 rules for living well with a chronic illness
Why is it that some people have a psychiatric disorder and they bounce back and it’s not a big deal, while others struggle terribly? For the unlucky ones, mental illness defines them.
Here are some factors that affect how much impact psychiatric illness has in a person’s life.
Predicting how much impact mental illness has in a person’s life
by Robert Rodvien, MD
When a person is told that they have a serious illness, they are similar to Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
They enter a bewildering new world of discussions, tests and treatment programs that must be navigated while maintaining a job, life obligations, and relationships with friends and family. Just when …
How podcasts can help patients with health literacy
I had never heard of ductal carcinoma in situ before I was diagnosed with it. Nor did I have a clue that breast cancer could be classified as stage 0; I only thought it came in stages 1 through 4. And I’m far from alone; most people I talked to had never heard of it either, including a …
Treatment for stage 0 breast cancer is definitely real
I am really enjoying my geriatrics rotation.
Although my attending preceptor is primarily a geriatrician, and practices deep in the heart of retiree central in southeast Florida, he also sees some patients who are younger. I took a history on a patient who was younger than me today, in her early thirties.
She started off complaining about insomnia and headaches, and then said …
Bereavement related depression and consoling a new widow
I am deeply conflicted about how we as a society have come to use physicians, medical science and advanced technology in our lives.
Everything has its place in life, but we have given modern medicine with its focus on the chemistry and physics of illness too prominent of a place. We’ve forgotten that we are not treating diseases; we are helping people with diseases.
Many readers, especially those with lifestyle diseases, can …
3 ways to deal with serious illness and engage the health care system
“She’s a really interesting patient!”
The doctor visiting the lady in question at home is correct. Nothing about her illness either has been routine. The progression of her disease has confounded her regular doctors for months. Nothing about her condition is normal. Medications have not worked as expected. The original diagnosis — Parkinson’s — is in question. All my training and expertise is inadequate, for I am an ENT surgeon, not …
Be a boring patient, not an interesting patient
by Mellanie True Hills
I have heard from thousands of atrial fibrillation patients who have shared their afib experiences with me. For so many of us, the diagnosis and treatment of afib is confusing and scary.
To improve communication between patients and their health-care providers, and ultimately, provide better care, I recently shared with doctors at the Western Atrial Fibrillation …
Improving atrial fibrillation communication between doctors and patients
We all like lists. US News & World Report has told us for years which colleges are considered the top in the nation. Castle Connolly tells us which are the “Top Doctors” in our community and Car & Driver gives us a ranking of cars by type.
In The Order of Things, Malcolm Gladwell pokes serious holes in some of our most revered rankings and lists.
If …
Best hospital lists influence consumer decision making
Until recently, I had but the vaguest idea of what hospice and palliative care and medicine (hpm) entailed.
Until tuning into the #hpm Twitter group – hospice and palliative medicine – both words conjured a gloomy atmosphere of despair, grief, anger, pain en route to dying. I wondered at those working in the field: they must be a bit weird.
I now know differently, …
The mission of the hospice and palliative care is to ease patient suffering
I hate infant sleep positioners. They are not safe or helpful. If you have one or know a family/friend who uses one for their infant, throw it out. Trash compact it. Stomp on it. Cut it up in bits. This is one rare thing you should feel good about putting in landfill.
When I was first started in practice, I didn’t even know sleep positioners existed; I …
How the fear of SIDS keeps infant sleep positioners on the market
by Katherine O’Brien
Cancer patients usually say they want a cure. Well, of course, that goes without saying. But it’s also kind of annoying.
We’ve all, as children and adults, had those “What if” conversations. What if you could have anything you wanted in the whole world? Depending on the respondents’ ages, people might say anything from “a …
Cancer is a crime, and how a tumor board is the courtroom
I am a nurse practitioner committed to expert level end of life care. I a consultant for hospice and palliative care organizations, a clinical educator and a volunteer in my town on the local emergency medical service. My life is paradoxical.
It’s not a happy partnership having a palliative mind and responding to 911 emergency calls to save lives.
It’s not …
The paradoxical life of a palliative care nurse practitioner who’s an EMT
Sam was late and Ella was furious. “Now why isn’t that man back by now? He knows it’s time to leave for church.”
The hours began to pass and Ella became frightened. Sam had gone out for his usual two mile run and had simply disappeared. Ella called friends and neighbors but no one had seen him. Panic began to set in so Ella called 911 who connected her to the …
How a patient’s organs could live on and be life saving to a recipient
How do I get my concerns heard about the direction of my treatment?
On the surface, it seems easy. Just tell your psychiatrist what you want him to pay attention to.
On the other hand, there are many reasons why it not so simple.
How to be heard by your psychiatrist
Harold was 51 years old and needed his left arm amputated. A year ago he noticed some swelling in his forearm and went to his primary care doctor.
An MRI showed something. It was small and hard to define, hard to categorize, probably a collection of blood, but there was an outside chance it could be a sarcoma, a tumor originating from muscle …
Arm amputation from a rare sarcoma
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