http://getbetterhealth.com Learn - Take Action - Better Health Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:10:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Well this is really exciting! Thanks to the readers and judges at Medgadget.com for acknowledging my blog for a 2008 Blog Award in the category of Health Policy and Ethics. (This blog won the "Best New Medical Blog" of 2007 award last year.) This year's winner will be determined by ... http://getbetterhealth.com/better-health-is-a-finalist-for-a-health-policyethics-blog-award/2009.01.05 [caption id="attachment_3031" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Amy Tenderich"][/caption] Amy Tenderich is a leading online voice for diabetes advocacy. She is author of the popular blog, Diabetes Mine, and has type 1 diabetes herself. I caught up with Amy recently to discuss her concerns about a potential slowdown in diabetes research due to an ... http://getbetterhealth.com/will-the-fda-slow-the-development-of-new-diabetes-drugs/2009.01.05 I was a little surprised by a recent reader comment suggesting that pharmaceutical companies are no different than tobacco manufacturers. While I am strongly opposed to misleading pharmaceutical marketing tactics, the bottom line is that most drugs have a legitimate therapeutic value. Tobacco, on the other hand, is a known ... http://getbetterhealth.com/are-for-profit-healthcare-companies-inherently-less-ethical-than-non-profit-organizations/2009.01.04 Thanks to KevinMD for highlighting an interesting discussion about the ethics of disclosing another physician's error. It reminded me of a case I witnessed many years ago. A young man had been in a car accident and was transferred to the rehab unit after several orthopedic surgeries and a long inpatient ... http://getbetterhealth.com/what-to-do-when-mistakes-happen/2009.01.03 http://getbetterhealth.com/the-friday-funny-dementias-upside/2009.01.02 President-elect Obama and Secretary of HHS designate, Tom Daschle, invited concerned Americans to discuss healthcare reform in community groups across the country. My husband and I hosted one such group at our home in DC yesterday. Although we had been instructed to compile a list of compelling stories about system ... http://getbetterhealth.com/ten-good-things-about-the-us-healthcare-system/2008.12.31 By Steve Simmons, MD What do New Year’s Resolutions tell us about ourselves?  Will they cast light on our hopes for the coming years or embody regrets best left in the year past?  Resolutions tell us about our hopes, about who we want to be, and if made for the right ... http://getbetterhealth.com/making-the-right-new-year%e2%80%99s-resolution-%e2%80%a6-and-keeping-it/2008.12.31 On January 31, 2009 The Medscape Journal will be discontinued. One can only assume that the journal’s parent company, WebMD, could no longer justify the cost associated with a free, open-access, peer-reviewed medical journal that receives no income from advertisers or sponsors. The Medscape Journal’s budget has been supported by ... http://getbetterhealth.com/farewell-to-the-medscape-journal/2008.12.30 I'm going to be migrating my server and upgrading the website over the next week or so. Comments have been disabled (I have no idea why - and yes I'm quite exasperated). Please stick around... I already have blog separation anxiety. 8-O The "you may also like these posts" section ... http://getbetterhealth.com/bumpy-blogging-ahead/2008.12.29 This is a great example of hospital administrator leadership (from Shadowfax): As I exited the parking garage, I noticed a man in work clothes shoveling off the walkway to the hospital.  I was fiddling with my cell phone (actually texting the wife to let her know I made it OK) so ... http://getbetterhealth.com/hospital-ceo-leads-by-example/2008.12.29