Patient voices

1,315 articles · Since 2005

Articles, page 46

The paradoxical life of a palliative care nurse practitioner who’s an EMT

April 30, 2011Apr 30, 20113

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…

It’s not a happy partnership having a palliative mind and responding to 911 emergency calls to save lives.

It’s not …

How a patient’s organs could live on and be life saving to a recipient

Jim deMaine, MD

April 28, 2011Apr 28, 20114

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…

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 to be heard by your psychiatrist

Dheeraj Raina, MD

April 26, 2011Apr 26, 201126

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…

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.

Many psychiatrists diagnose a patient’s illness after a 45-50 minute interview, without doing any tests to rule out potential medical causes of

…

Read more…

How to be heard by your psychiatrist

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Arm amputation from a rare sarcoma

Felicity Billings, MD

April 25, 2011Apr 25, 2011

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…

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 …

Read more…

Arm amputation from a rare sarcoma

How to discharge a patient from your practice

Adam Alpers, DO

April 25, 2011Apr 25, 201113

Occasionally, you may encounter patients who you no longer wish to treat. Reasons for ending the physician-patient relationship may include chronic non-compliance, rudeness to office staff, or non-payment of bills. While these patient behaviors can affect the interactive care-giving process,…

While these patient behaviors can affect the interactive care-giving process, they may also identify patients with a propensity to file a claim against you. To help reduce the risk …

How the medical profession advanced women’s rights

Ted Bacharach, MD

April 21, 2011Apr 21, 20113

The physicians as a group have been accused of many things. We have been blamed for the high cost of medical care, the depersonalization of physicians and the discontinuity of medical care. If there was any situation in which we…

The physicians as a group have been accused of many things. We have been blamed for the high cost of medical care, the depersonalization of physicians and the discontinuity of medical care.

If there was any situation in which we have performed exceptionally well but not been realized by the public, it would be in …

Smart patients need to establish a relationship with a primary care doctor

Trisha Torrey

April 19, 2011Apr 19, 20117

Good primary care physicians are becoming harder and harder to find. You may not have noticed it yet, but I predict that a year from now we’ll find it almost impossible to find primary care doctors who are willing to…

Good primary care physicians are becoming harder and harder to find.

You may not have noticed it yet, but I predict that a year from now we’ll find it almost impossible to find primary care doctors who are willing to take on new patients – at least any primary care doctor worth seeing won’t be …

Personalized health records and genomic tests for patients

Douglas Elwood, MD, MBA

April 18, 2011Apr 18, 20112

Two articles recently highlighted two very different areas of medicine that are quickly colliding and pointing to a new direction for health delivery. The first, published in the Wall Street Journal, discusses the steady rise of personalized health records through…

Two articles recently highlighted two very different areas of medicine that are quickly colliding and pointing to a new direction for health delivery.

The first, published in the Wall Street Journal, discusses the steady rise of personalized health records through companies like Google, Microsoft, and WebMD. The second, published in USA Today, examines genetic tests and the disconnect between what is available and what physicians understand about …

Where an adult can get low cost vaccines

Leslie Ramirez, MD

April 15, 2011Apr 15, 201112

At LesliesList.org we get many emails asking where an adult can get low cost vaccines. It appears the answer is... nowhere. They don't exist-- unless you are an established patient in one of the county-funded or low-cost clinics in your…

At LesliesList.org we get many emails asking where an adult can get low cost vaccines.

It appears the answer is… nowhere. They don’t exist– unless you are an established patient in one of the county-funded or low-cost clinics in your metropolitan area. However, you can save a little money by comparison shopping. I think your best bet is to try one of the walk-in …

True Grit and sharing decisions on health care with our doctors

Jessie Gruman, PhD

April 15, 2011Apr 15, 20114

In the recent Coen brothers' remake of the 1969 movie True Grit, Mattie Ross, an intrepid 14-year-old, is determined to hunt down and kill the man who murdered her father. To accomplish this, she hires U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, (played…

In the recent Coen brothers’ remake of the 1969 movie True Grit, Mattie Ross, an intrepid 14-year-old, is determined to hunt down and kill the man who murdered her father.

To accomplish this, she hires U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, (played by a mumbling Jeff Bridges) a rough, one-eyed veteran of many such quests – then announces that she plans to come along. She figures she is prepared.

After all, she and her …

How to sabotage a doctor’s appointment

Diana E. Lee

April 14, 2011Apr 14, 201116

by Diana E. Lee None of us really wants to sabotage a doctor's appointment through our own behavior. But it's easy to do just that by not paying attention to the factors within our control that affect the quality of…

by Diana E. Lee

None of us really wants to sabotage a doctor’s appointment through our own behavior. But it’s easy to do just that by not paying attention to the factors within our control that affect the quality of our appointments.

These are some behaviors to avoid at all costs:

1. Show up late for appointments. It’s an unfortunate …

Read more…

How to sabotage a doctor’s appointment

A healthy plan for dining out

Sally Scroggs

April 14, 2011Apr 14, 20113

by Sally Scroggs, RD About 130 million Americans will eat out on any given day this year. While dining out shouldn’t mean "pigging out," picking a salad over cheese fries can sometimes be difficult. According to the American Cancer Society,…

by Sally Scroggs, RD

About 130 million Americans will eat out on any given day this year. While dining out shouldn’t mean “pigging out,” picking a salad over cheese fries can sometimes be difficult.

According to the American Cancer Society, making healthy food choices is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your cancer risks. But nutritional experts say many of us don’t make good …

Read more…

A healthy plan for dining out

Screen your sleep lab when evaluating your insomnia

Colleen Kelly Mellor

April 12, 2011Apr 12, 201114

Insomnia plagues me. In that, I’m no different from millions of other Americans. But I am different in that I sought supposed experts to help me deal with this situation. My experience proved to be a nightmare. First, I believed…

First, I believed my sleeplessness due to the fact I feel “on,” all the time, doing too many things in the space of 24 hours. …

Ordering tests may take food out of the mouths of our patients

Tarcia Edmunds-Jehu

April 11, 2011Apr 11, 201116

Sitting in an exam room I am watching my patient struggling to ask a difficult question that she clearly does not want to ask. After several attempts at starting and a few half finished sentences she finally manages to mumble…

Sitting in an exam room I am watching my patient struggling to ask a difficult question that she clearly does not want to ask.

After several attempts at starting and a few half finished sentences she finally manages to mumble a request for help with obtaining food for herself and her two daughters. She is a 41-year-old woman, 32 weeks pregnant with her third child, and …

When a patient evokes an emotional reaction from a physician

Brian Goldman, MD

April 11, 2011Apr 11, 201111

When it comes to caring for the sick, it's often assumed that health professionals and their patients usually get along. But that's not always true. Sales people call some of their customers difficult. Turns out that doctors do exactly the…

When it comes to caring for the sick, it’s often assumed that health professionals and their patients usually get along.

But that’s not always true. Sales people call some of their customers difficult. Turns out that doctors do exactly the same thing with theirs. An article in the current issue of the journal Neurology provides a catalog of difficult …

Why patients seek a second opinion

Howard Luks, MD

April 10, 2011Apr 10, 20117

This has been a very busy week already. I have seen many second opinions and I am always very interested in the reason why the patient initiated the second opinion. In many situations it was simply to see if I…

This has been a very busy week already. I have seen many second opinions and I am always very interested in the reason why the patient initiated the second opinion.

In many situations it was simply to see if I would perform the surgery. After I spent a while listening to the patient, examining them and coming up with an appropriate …

Read more…

Why patients seek a second opinion

What your patient appreciates, and what causes hurt and confusion

Shara Yurkiewicz

April 9, 2011Apr 9, 20116

Listening to patients for the past two weeks, we learned quite a bit about what patients appreciated about their doctors and what had left them hurt and confused. The good: M., an elderly lady with a very close relationship with…

Listening to patients for the past two weeks, we learned quite a bit about what patients appreciated about their doctors and what had left them hurt and confused.

The good:

M., an elderly lady with a very close relationship with her primary care physician, said she had been to many bad doctors in her life. She knew right away that her current doctor …

Becoming the official caregiver to your sick parent

StorytellERdoc, MD

April 8, 2011Apr 8, 20115

I imagine the world as a vast, boundless frontier weathered by our swirling human emotions and complicated energies -- hurricanes of intense heartbreak and tornadoes of joyous, unbridled celebrations, with every weather pattern in between. Sunshine and rain included. If…

I imagine the world as a vast, boundless frontier weathered by our swirling human emotions and complicated energies — hurricanes of intense heartbreak and tornadoes of joyous, unbridled celebrations, with every weather pattern in between. Sunshine and rain included.

If I could gather this world, foolishly believing that I could sweep my arms and hands through the unsuspecting air to collect a smaller, more-contained version of reality, I know with absolute …

16 and Pregnant is increasing the awareness of teen pregnancy

Jeff Livingston, MD

April 7, 2011Apr 7, 20114

Recently, I had the honor of moderating a discussion for the Sex::Tech 2011 Conference with the producers of MTVs 16 and Pregnant Morgan Freeman, Dia Sokol Savage and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. I was fascinated by the…

Recently, I had the honor of moderating a discussion for the Sex::Tech 2011 Conference with the producers of MTVs 16 and Pregnant Morgan Freeman, Dia Sokol Savage and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

I was fascinated by the responses of members in the audience as well as the reactions I read while monitoring the online live stream via Twitter. So what did I conclude?

I concluded that the issue of teen pregnancy …

Patients can lift doctors up during a challenging day

Linda Pourmassina, MD

April 4, 2011Apr 4, 20112

I will be leaving my current practice in a couple months and starting work at a different clinic in a different city. This type of transition really brings to light how much I had really gotten to know patients on…

One day, I saw a patient on my schedule that had historically required more of my emotional energy. We often …

Patient voices

Articles, page 46

Real physician voices, twice a week

The Podcast

Latest episodes

Most popular

The Podcast

Latest episodes

Most popular