One of my favorite conferences is The Conference on Practice Improvement hosted by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).
For all the upset and negativity there seems to be toward doctors, these family docs are in it — each and every one that I’ve met — for the good of their patients. And that is why I think every one of them …
Every patient is an immigrant in the doctor’s office
As a marketer it’s important to be able to take a step back and look at the marketing environment from a patients perspective. Over the last couple of weeks, for example, consumers have read:
Patients do not voluntarily search for health information online
I was enjoying lunch at a local café when I overheard one staffer say to another that she was facing her twenty fifth birthday soon. She went on to say, 25 is the last “real” birthday, after that “you’re just getting old”. I had to laugh, since I’m well past that age and holding up. Sure, there are some wrinkles and gray hair to contend with, that’s life.
I remember my …
Aging is a blessing, a gift to be treasured
My old Canadian friend toxicologist Cliff Walberg was right when he famously said, “there is absolutely no limit to how revolting things can be.”
Remember that. It comes in handy, in addition to strong swear words, when stuff happens.
Case in point: I believe that every American deserves the right to choose to have a death with dignity and as pain-free as medical science and practice can provide.
To achieve that, patients and …
Every American deserves the right to have a death with dignity
Dr. Erdoc happened to look up when the internist walked into the emergency department.
“Oh no,” he murmured under his breath. The consulting psychiatrist was sitting next to him, typing a note. She looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“I hoped it wouldn’t be him. Unlike his colleagues, Dr. Internist seems to have a deep loathing for us emergency docs,” Dr. Erdoc explained as he stood up. Dr. Internist was frowning …
ER and internal medicine docs, arguing over a patient admission
Heads up folks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), parents of premature babies want you to succeed more than you may realize. It is just hard for them to communicate this through the fog of stress and exhaustion that has consumed them for countless hours, days and even months.
So here is a little insight into the parent mind and what they want you to know about what it is …
Top 5 NICU tips from a preemie parent
by VeronicaB, MD
We’ve all had that hysterical patient. The one that comes in during a busy shift. Grabbing at their head, their chest, their abdomen. Yelling out that they are in pain.
You know the one. They makes the nurses’ eyes roll. They add to an already chaotic scene. Other patients stop to watch as the gurney rolls by.
You debate how long you’re going to wait to …
The hysterical patient during a busy ER shift
by erdoc85, MD
When I arrived for my shift this am, I was passed off the following patient.
EMS responded to a 50-year old guy laying alongside the Interstate. He had no idea who he was or how he got there. He complained of knee pain and shoulder pain. They were kind enough to tote him to my ER where his evaluation revealed that he had a fracture …
Why a patient waited 80 hours in the ER for placement
‘Tis the season for upper respiratory infections, and since I couldn’t tell if what I had was garden-variety crud or crud that needed antibiotics, I went to the doctor. I handed over my $20 co-pay at the reception desk, where they have an electric candle burning, a tradition when a soldier is off to war. Their soldier is my family doctor, who’s in Afghanistan as a colonel with the Army …
A $20 co-pay and the value of an office visit
In classic Aristotelian drama, there comes a moment when the main character is presented with an insurmountable obstacle, be it physical, psychological, spiritual, or otherwise. The nature of the obstacle forces the character to make a choice: a critical choice, an act of free will that determines the glide path of the rest of the story, irrevocably altering its arc.
So it is with the arc of illness, a medical drama …
A person’s attitude toward their illness has a huge impact
Last year’s Mayo Transform 2010 symposium was a two-day excursion into the world of science, data, design, and the secret ingredient to health: love.
Patch Adams, MD, kicked things off in grand style. If you’ve never seen him speak, treat yourself to a hit of his energy:
In 1971, he and …
Love is the secret ingredient to health
An excerpt from What Will Happen to Me?
by Howard Zehr and Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz
Children need time to adjust to the separation caused by having a parent in prison. But it takes more than time. As we have heard in their voices, children also need to make sense of what has happened to them and to their parent or parents. Because of this, they have many …
10 questions asked by children whose parents are in prison
by Zakari Tata, MD
Biomedical ethics and bedside communication is currently taught to medical students in a classroom mainly in the first two years. In residency it is not usually given a lot of attention. This is leading to a situation where a very basic part of daily patient interaction is not addressed. This leads to many complex problems in the hospital that lead to moral dilemmas and conflicts.
The idea needs …
Bioethics and bedside communication in daily patient interaction
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by John Mooney
A recent study conducted by Dove Press Patient Intelligence Journal asked this question of patients: “Have you ever asked your physician to prescribe something different than the original recommendation?” Thirty-four percent of the respondents indicated that in fact they had. Perhaps even more interesting: of that 34 percent, 69 percent of the doctors agreed to prescribe the alternative drug when asked. Why is this important? The health …
Why the time is right for collaborative care
Doctors have no trouble or compunction giving these good pieces of advice:
These all likely can augment both life quality and expectancy.
Do doctors, then, (in appropriate situations obviously) go the extra mile and tell a patient to get married? There are reasonable reports church-going adds to longevity, but with sensitivity to broaching religious beliefs, doctors may be reluctant to suggest …
Should doctors give marriage advice?
Gentle nudges is a concept termed recently to describe a micro-choice movement that is beginning to carve out a sizable niche in the healthcare start-up space, and is gaining a lot of well deserved national attention. The secret ingredient relates to the power of a gentle nudge; verbal, text or otherwise to accomplish a change in the behavior of the person who receives the nudge. We are just starting to …
Change health behavior with a gentle nudge
by Dora Calott Wang, MD
There will be more shooting rampages, like that which targeted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson recently-as long as it is easier to get a gun than mental health care. Our current epidemic of mass shootings is but a symptom of our nation’s broken health care system. Poor access to medical care jeopardizes an individual’s health. But when the mentally ill or the seriously distressed can’t access …
Mass shootings is a symptom of our nation’s broken health care system
An active 61 year female, who has been in my practice for 30 years, developed strange aches and pains and abdominal symptoms. My evaluation turned up nothing.
I then asked for help at the University of Miami rheumatology and gastroenterology divisions. With the help of a brilliant local gastroenterologist and rheumatologist, and after a trip to Johns Hopkins Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic, collagenous …
Patient advocacy is essential in health insurance appeals
“How to Haggle With Your Doctor” was the title of a recent Business section column in the New York Times. This is one of many similar directives to the public in magazines, TV and Websites urging us to lower the high price of our health care by going mano a mano with our physicians about the price of tests they recommend and the drugs they prescribe. Such articles provide simple, …
Haggling with your doctor about the costs of care
by Dennis Grace
I recently received a message from the Center for Connected Health. I must admit the opening of the letter really put me off. It asked:
How do you solve the puzzle of patient compliance?
I responded to the gentleman who sent the invitation with:
Well, you might start by calling it something less offensive. Patient compliance? The phrase assumes “patient” as direct object rather than subject of participatory medicine. We …
Solving the puzzle of patient compliance
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