Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

Celebrating The Anniversary Of A Diabetes Diagnosis With A Pump-Shaped Cake

A few weeks ago, I posted a photo and part of an email from a reader who had made an insulin pump-shaped cake for their daughter’s birthday.  In that magical way of the Internet (where cats haz a cheeseburger and lovely little bean people talk about diabetes), another family with a kid pumping insulin caught the post, and baked up a little bolus of their own.

So, to kick off Diabetes Month here, I connected with Gwyneth’s mom, and Gwyneth emailed me her perspective on what it’s like to mark her first diaversary, which is TODAY.  At the start of Diabetes Month.  How’s that for timing?   Read more »

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

Creative Cakes For People With Diabetes

You know when you’re skimming through the newsfeed on Facebook, and something totally grabs your face and says “LOOK AT ME I AM THE AWESOME?”

Yes, that’s precisely what happened when I stumbled upon Faye’s photo of Novolog-inspired cake pops.  (You did read that correctly.  Here, look:)

We're gonna need a bigger bottle.
Photo – and cake pops – by Faye!

Faye has been living with type 1 since the age of 9, and for her 18th diaversary she wanted to make something special and bolus-worthy. Her current obsession has been cake pops (making them and feeding them to her non-d friends, even though I can safely say that some of her d-friends would happily go chompies on one), so when she saw the bright orange candy melts at her local AC Moore, a lightbulb went off – NovoLog cake pops! It was too funny (and ironic) to pass up. It’s a celebration of living with diabetes for 18 years, and it’s also a tribute to the diabetes community and a reminder to find the humor in our journey. Read more »

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

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles