October 7th, 2010 by Jennifer Shine Dyer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
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As doctors, sometimes the biggest lessons that we learn about disease pathology are those that we learn from the people that have that disease. Diabetes is one such disease.
I recently gave a show-and-tell lecture about insulin pumps to the new interns and residents as well as the 3rd-year medical students on their pediatric clerkship with the inpatient endocrine service. We discussed different types of pumps (point A on the picture) and they got to push the buttons and send a bolus or change a basal rate. They also looked at real time CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitors, points C and D on the picture) sensors used to check glucoses levels every five minutes. Read more »
October 1st, 2010 by Jennifer Shine Dyer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Research, True Stories
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As a medical professional who often treats children with chronic diseases, my patients turn to me not only for treatment advice but often for advice on how to improve their quality of life. I often have difficulty addressing the latter as there is a paucity of research on quality of life outcomes as compared to biomedical outcomes.
However, preliminary data from DR Walker et al. (1) have shown that comprehensive disease management improves quality of life and thereby reduces medical costs for some common chronic illnesses. Recently, a patient shared a story with me that was written by an anonymous author which demonstrates the powerful effect of seemingly small efforts on the quality of life of a disabled child. Read more »
