In case you missed it, salt is the new fat.
It seems that everybody from the FDA to Steven Colbert of the Colbert Report has set their sights on limiting our consumption of salt. In the past week, I’ve seen dozens of articles from the blogosphere to the front page of USA Today and a recent edition of Time on reducing our alarming levels of salt consumption.
Many of us are aware …
Reducing salt is a good idea but won’t save your life
Thanks to modern medicine, more people are living longer, but a longer life isn’t always a healthier one. According to the American Cancer Society, about 77 percent of people diagnosed with cancer are 55 or older.
Living a healthy lifestyle is important to reducing cancer risks. But as we age, it’s sometimes easy to forget the importance of exercise, proper nutrition and stress management, which is why I like to solicit …
Lifestyle tips for aging family members
“You can’t afford to be sick!”
I hate these ads.
You’ve seen them. They’re in newspapers and regional magazines across the country. Some smiling mom and her cute kid. It’s an ad for some local clinic, always with a tagline like “You can’t afford to be sick!” or “You don’t have time to be sick!”
And they list things they treat, like headache, sore throat, ankle sprain, runny nose, and skinned knees. They …
Being sick is not always abnormal
I’ve had disgusting congestion in my nose/sinuses for the past month or so.
I’ve never had a sinus infection in my life despite having horrible allergies to dust. I take Claritin every day for my allergies. But this time, the issues just wouldn’t go away. I needed to go see a doctor. So last night around 8pm I made an appointment with Dr. Samuel Grubman via ZocDoc for 9am this morning. …
Doctors are stuck in the same system as patients when they get sick
“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this — ‘devoted and obedient.’ This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.”
-Florence Nightingale, 1859
Please take a moment to celebrate the nurses in your life. Florence Nightingale was the first to publicly decry the sorry …
Nurses are underappreciated but key to patient care
“These are exciting and very promising times for the widespread application of information technology to improve the quality of healthcare delivery, while also reducing costs, but there is much yet to do, and in my comments I want to note especially the importance of the resource that is most often under-utilized in our information systems – our patients.”
– Charles Safran MD, testimony to the House Ways & Means subcommittee on health [Emphasis …
A patient in chief is what American healthcare needs
In the U.S., correctional facilities are required by law to provide inmates with access to medical care. As health care costs have spiraled out of control everywhere, jails and prisons have attempted to develop innovative ways of reducing this hefty financial burden while simultaneously meeting their legal obligation to provide care.
One approach that has gained significant popularity in recent years is to require inmates to pay a small fee, usually …
Should prisons require co-pays for inmate health care?
Since 1992, the federal government has spent close to $1 billion on abstinence-only sex education, despite growing evidence that these ideology-based programs are ineffective in delaying the onset of sexual activity, preventing teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually-transmitted disease among teens.
Meanwhile, comprehensive sex education—the kind where teens are given information about both abstinence and contraceptives—has received virtually no federal funding.
That’s why it was so encouraging when President Obama released …
Why abstinence only sex education is a waste of money
by Kristina Fiore
E-mail may be a simple and cheap way to screen college students for depression, but it’s not likely to motivate them to seek treatment, researchers said.
A commonly-used depression screening tool sent in e-mail blasts to students at four colleges put the prevalence of major depressive disorder at 14.5%, Irene Shyu, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues reported at a poster session at the American Psychiatric …
E-mail can screen college students for depression
I recently was involved in a web discussion on elective choices with a group of medical students.
Financial considerations aside, I was surprised how few were interested in visiting third world countries to see how medicine is practiced outside the first world comfort zone of unlimited expertise, investigation and therapy — where “want” often exceeds “need.”
The third world however is completely different. It’s an environment where doctors and nurses are in …
Third world doctors are the real physician heroes
I see a lot of articles by physicians complaining about how the use of a computerized medical record (EMR) in the exam room with patients detracts from the physician-patient experience.
The complaint usually follows the theme that the physician and patient are not able to have eye contact, and both the physician and the patient feel less intimate and connected during the visit because the physician’s need to use the keyboard, …
How to talk to patients with an EMR in the room
Websites that encourage patients to share their experiences are growing in popularity.
But how reliable are they, and for those that are profit-driven, how do they make their money?
A recent story in the New York Times attempts to answer those questions.
There are plenty of benefits that these sites offer, like providing patients with a virtual support group of sorts. That’s something that most find tremendously helpful and is missing …
How online patient communities make money from patient data
Welcome readers from CNN.com!
“E-patients are an essential part of the health care team, and play an increasingly influential role in the shared decision making process with their physicians.”
That’s what I wrote in a CNN.com column published this morning, entitled, Will the doctor answer your e-mail?
However, doctors aren’t given the tools or the time to properly engage empowered patients, despite …
My CNN column on how empowered patients can help doctors
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The trauma for Artyom continues. After having been given up to an orphanage by his alcoholic mother who lost her parental rights, being adopted by a US family, sent back to Russia alone when his adoptive mother allegedly was unable to cope with his psychological problems, he has now become the object of a tug-of war between Russia and the US over his citizenship. His future seems to hold unimaginable …
Adoption lessons after Artyom Savelyev
I’m a doctor. We get all the glory. And credit. And guess what? We only deserve part of it.
I started out in medicine in the mid-80’s, volunteering at an ER. And the biggest shock to me was learning how much of what happens in a hospital is nurse territory. Doctors will see you anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes a day, …
Listening to nurses is key to being a good doctor
by Brad Stuart, MD
Rob Pardi’s comments in Pallimed affected me deeply. His honesty, integrity, and willingness to share were so impressive that I feel reluctant to take issue with anything he had to say. Yet today I find myself somewhat in conflict with his message.
Rob’s wife, a palliative care doctor, died of cancer recently and her story, published in the New York Times made it sound as if …
Patients who are dying and their awareness of death
An excerpt from Top 5 Questions to Ask Your Doctor
by Sagar Nigwekar, MD and James Sutton, RPA-C
Tips for Talking to Your Doctor
Entering a doctor’s office can be like entering a different world. There are often “rules” and “protocols” that the doctor, nurses, and staff follow that you may not be familiar with. This book offers some very helpful questions for you to have an intelligent conversation with …
Questions patients should be asking their doctors
How many patients actually take the prescription drugs that their doctors prescribe them?
Less than you think.
Pauline Chen, in a recent New York Times’ column, discusses the worrisome issue of medication noncompliance.
And the numbers are stark. According to the data, “as many as half of all patients did not follow their doctors’ advice when it came to medications,” and, “more than 20 percent of first-time patient prescriptions were never …
Why prescription drugs are not taken by patients
The new definition of participatory medicine at the Society’s website notes that patients “shift from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health, and … providers encourage and value them as full partners.” As with any collaboration, this must include a hefty dose of listening by both parties.
I recently returned from an extraordinary week in Minnesota, with visits to several thought-provoking care facilities. The week was all about …
Medical compliance from a patient perspective
by Sandeep Grewal, MD
We as doctors and patients as well as medicine as a whole have evolved over time. What used to be a simple conversation of between a doctor and a patient has turned into a melee of medical issues, legal issues, insurance and financial issues and not to mention the complicated ICD 9 and CPT code system.
Conversation between a doctor and patient in 1960s:
Patient: Sir, I am …
Patient relationships with their doctors over time
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