I guess the theme this week is “when things go wrong.” It seems like just when I think we are getting a grip on public health issues like smoking and violence against women, something appears to shake up my naive belief that we are making progress.
Last month the Parents Television Council (PTC) reported that incidents of violence against women on mainstream U.S. TV has increased by 1.2 times in the past five years with the depiction of teen girls as victims being four times as high as it was five years ago. This particular type of violence seems to be increasing at a higher rate than just regular violence, which makes it worse.
Singled out as the worst offender was Fox which the PTC said allows violence against women to be trivialized through punch lines in comedies like “Family Guy” and “American Dad.” Faring the best was ABC (that is, until the AMA Award show last week) which apparently was the only network not showing a dramatic increase in the number of stories that included beating, violent threats, shooting, rape, stabbing and torture. Read more »
I kick off this segment with a surprising twist: I describe a hospital error that I experienced as a patient in the ER of a famous academic medical center. And yes, I give a shout out to Paul Levy at minute 5 for his courageous efforts to reduce infection rates at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
I recently spoke at the first annual ePatient Connections conference in Philadelphia. I’ll be discussing the ePatient revolution (patients participating in their healthcare decision-making using Internet tools) at ABC news channel 8 live this morning with Dave Lucas. During the segment I’ll be referring to several websites that people will want to check out. For those of you who saw the segment, welcome to my website! Here are the links:
1. Doctors answer questions for free at MedHelp.org Did you know that 9 of the top 11 hospital centers in the country offer access to their physicians for free at MedHelp.org? As part of a PR effort, hospitals are volunteering their doctors’ time to make sure that ePatients can get their questions answered by a reputable source.
2. Identify those mystery pills. Thanks to David Hale at the NIH, a new pill identifier tool is now available online. It’s called “PillBox” and it will soon allow you to search its large pill database by describing the color, shape, and letter/number codes printed on the tablet. Eventually, you may even be able to take a photo of the mysterious pill and have PillBox automatically identify it for you! Today, unfortunately, photo resolution on most cell phones and cameras is not sufficient for this feature to work. Read more »
We’ve all heard about the importance of getting our flu shots this season, but did you know that there are 10 vaccines commonly recommended for adults? I spoke with Dave Lucas at ABC News about the low rates of adult vaccinations in the US, and encouraged people to ask their doctors if they’re up to date with their vaccinations.
I recently joined SVP of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Judith Pickens, at ABC News to discuss the childhood obesity crisis and what can be done about it.
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