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For Moms And Moms-To-Be With Diabetes

Buy this book!For anyone who has been reading my blog since my engagement three years ago, you know that motherhood has been on my radar for a long time. Longer than marriage. That quest for a decent A1C, that desire for a “normal” pregnancy, and that hope for a happy and healthy baby.

Part of the reason I wanted to write about my pregnancy here on SUM is because there wasn’t a lot of information out there about pre-existing diabetes and pregnancy. There was a LOT of information on gestational diabetes (obviously), and type 2 diabetes got some good press, but type 1 diabetes was sort of swept under the rug. Thankfully, there were a few diabetes bloggers who had chronicled their journeys, and I wanted to add my voice to that hopeful chorus.   

But also thankfully, Cheryl Alkon had taken the topic to her publisher, and she penned the first book on managing pre-existing diabetes and pregnancy. And I’m very honored to have been both featured in her book (as a woman preparing for pregnancy) and to have her contributing here on Six Until Me (SUM). Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

Navigating The New York Publishing World To Help Patients

The book publishing world, largely based in New York City, is in trouble. The fragmentation of the market by electronics large and small has chopped former readers into so many pieces. How can a publisher make a blockbuster buck anymore? The answer may come in translations of Swedish fiction from a newly-found novelist, now dead, to non-fiction ghostwritten for a face everyone knows from the evening news.

In a whirlwind face-to-face series of meeting with publishers on a very recent sunny Tuesday in Manhattan, I got a glimpse of their angst and did my best to convince them that a book — yes, even all sorts of electronic versions and in-the-palm-of-your-hand “apps” — could make them boatloads of money and do the right thing for America’s healthcare consumer (just maybe such a work could be translated into Swedish and do good there in a return of the favor literary effort). Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*

Doctor To Patient: “Do You Text And Drive?”

It’s time to ask patients whether they text and drive. An important perspective piece from the New England Journal of Medicine urges doctors to include that question during preventive health exams. The data surrounding texting and driving is grim:

Although there are many possible distractions for drivers, more than 275 million Americans own cell phones, and 81% of them talk on those phones while driving. The adverse consequences have reached epidemic proportions. Current data suggest that each year, at least 1.6 million traffic accidents (28% of all crashes) in the United States are caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting. Talking on the phone causes many more accidents than texting, simply because millions more drivers talk than text; moreover, using a hands-free device does not make talking on the phone any safer.

The author of the piece, Amy Ship from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, says that doctors should update traditional preventive questions to keep up with the times.  The simple question, “Do you text while you drive?” is a way to start this important conversation. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Is Sunburn More Likely On The Beach Or In The Mountains?

While vacationing in Idaho and Montana last week (blissfully off the grid), I experienced something beautiful: altitude. At 6,260 feet Stanley, Idaho is a mile higher than my home in San Diego. The skies there were a brilliant blue. There was daylight well after 10PM. The mornings were a chilly 35 degrees. And I got sunburned.

How can this be? Montana is over 1,000 miles north of San Diego. Shouldn’t the sun be stronger down here? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Dermatology Blog*

How Doctors Think Vs. How Patients Think

How Doctors ThinkIf you want to see the difference between how doctors and patients think, read Jerome Groopman’s “How Doctors Think” and Thomas Goetz’s “The Decision Tree.” The contrast is striking.

“How Doctors Think,” while offering a comprehensive review of the cognitive missteps made by physicians, is terminally physician-centric in its analysis of the relationship we share with patients. “The Decision Tree,” while offering a novel blueprint for self-reliance in health, seems almost sheepish in its recognition that physicians are even really that important. The muted physician cameos of “The Decision Tree” stand in stark contrast to Groopman’s Harvard-trained masters of the universe. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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