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

Latest Posts

Making Circumcision A Crime?

Have you heard? First San Fransisco bans toys in Happy Meals. Now CNN is reporting there’s a  circumcision ban proposed in San Fransisco as well. 

To recap: Anti-circumcision activist Lloyd Schofield has drawn up a proposal outlawing all circumcisions, even for religious reasons (circumcision of boys is traditional in Judaism and Islam.) The punishment would be up to a year in jail or up to a $1,000 fine.

Boy, oh boy. What a hot-bed topic circumcision is. Mandating a ban against all circumcisions is like mandating a requirement that all boys be circumcised. Nobody is right. Everyone is an expert. You’re either for it or against it. But making circumcision a crime? I don’t know. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

How Much Pesticide Is In That Cigarette?

I had a fascinating discussion with an ex-tobacco farming expert. He’s an expert because he used to grow tobacco, but not anymore. If you’re a smoker, or user of any tobacco leaf product, what he said should shock you. I take that back — you’re a smoker: “shocked” is never going to happen to you.

What did he say that was so striking? I’m not a farmer, so it became a little difficult to understand all the science behind the conversation. Needless to say, he said they used to farm vegetables and tobacco side by side. He said something about potato farming being timed with tobacco crops, and when the potato market went south he got out of the tobacco farming business for good and went with just vegetables. Now he’s a full-time vegetable farmer.

While he was a tobacco farmer, how did he run his tobacco farm? Like I said, he grew vegetables and tobacco side-by-side. He used different pesticides for the vegetables than he did for the tobacco farming. He farmed based on the concept that people who ate vegetables were looking for a healthy food. So he used pesticides in their lowest recommended concentration and applied them at the longest recommended time frame between applications and used the safest formulations available. None of his chemicals carried the skull-and-crossbones warning. And what about the tobacco farming? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Medicaid Thieves And The Future Of Healthcare

Are you wondering about a glaring unintended consequence of  healthcare reform? Read on to learn how everyone becomes a criminal.

By now you’ve all heard of the government reports of Medicare fraud being three times higher than 17 billion dollars a year  previously thought. How you ask? Because an illegible doctor signature is considered fraud and Obama is out to make things right and transparent and accurate. You can pretty much count on every physician in this country being a fraudster.

But what about Medicaid? Does the same fraud problem exist with the Medicaid system? Probably, but you also have to worry about the patient abuse aspect as well. Here’s an angle of  unintended consequences you may not have considered with healthcare reform by making pre-existing conditions a thing of the past.

I have been told Happy’s hospital has a handful of repeat offenders using their family member’s Medicaid card to get free healthcare services in the ER. Why is that possible and why would anyone let their family member use their insurance card? The question you should ask is not “why,” but “why not?” Why wouldn’t every family with Medicaid share their card? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

The Clock’s Tick-Tock And Our “Tickers”

With the daylight savings fall-back date for 2010 rapidly approaching (remember: “Spring forward, fall back” — which is this Sunday, November 7th, 2010), I’m reminded of some research I read a few years back suggesting a link between daylight savings and heart attack risk. The research suggested the Monday effect of increased heart attacks was not related to stress, but rather the sleep cycle.

When looked at from the daylight savings fall-back perspective, the research suggests the extra hour of sleep we gain from the November 7th, 2010 daylight savings fall-back date will be protective against heart attack risk. Good to know, especially if you’re the cardiologist on call the week following either date.

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

How Do You Hide $100 From A Doctor?

How do you hide $100 from a surgeon? Put it in the patient’s chart, next to the labs.

How do you hide $100 from an orthopedist? Put it in a textbook.

How do you hide $100 from a neurosurgeon? Tape it to his kid.

How do you hide $100 from an OB/GYN? Tape it to the patient’s head.

How do you hide $100 from an internist? Stick it under the patient’s bandage.

How do you hide $100 from a radiologist? Give it to the patient.

How do you hide $100 from a cardiologist? You can’t.

How do you hide $100 from a plastic surgeon? You definitely can’t.

— Compliments of The Happy Hospitalist

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

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