January 13th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Medblogger Shout Outs
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Dr. Val is hosting the historic inauguration day Grand Rounds at MedPageToday. Please send your submissions to this email address: valjonesmd AT gmail dot com. Put “Grand Rounds Submission” in your email title and please use this format for the body of your email:
- Post title
- Post url
- Short description of the post
- Blog title
- Blog url
Although I have never done a themed Grand Rounds before, it would be terribly remiss of me not to acknowledge healthcare reform on the very inauguration day of our new President, Barack Obama. So please send me your best posts about the change you’d like to see in healthcare. If we do a really great job of this, maybe Tom Daschle will take a looksie? Don’t laugh, but DC is a small world – I share a hair stylist with Tom’s wife, Linda!
Please send me your submissions by midnight, ET, Sunday January 18th. I will include all submissions, but will give more weight to those that are about healthcare reform.
For those of you who are reading this and wondering what on earth I’m talking about – please read about Grand Rounds here. It’s the weekly summary of the best blog posts from the medical blogosphere.
My inaugural Grand Rounds will be published at MedPageToday at 8am, Tuesday, January 20th. (This link will work from that time on). I hope that we’ll reach an unprecedented number of readers on this platform.
I look forward to receiving your submissions!
Warmest Regards,
Val
P.S. Please enjoy Barbara Kivowitz’s Grand Rounds this week – it has a Sci Fi theme! The January 27th edition of Grand Rounds will be hosted by: Chronic Babe.
January 12th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Audio, Expert Interviews
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Well today was quite a role reversal for me – instead of interviewing someone for my blog, I was interviewed by another blogger. Dr. Philippa Kennealy of the Entrepreneurial MD, asked to speak to me about my new company, Better Health LLC. She summarized the interview here, calling me “The whole-brained physician who won’t ‘stay in the box.'” Quick, someone send for the men in white with butterfly nets!
You may listen to our podcast interview below (just click on the play button):
[Audio: http://blog.getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/entrepreneurialmd.mp3]
January 12th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Medical Art
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My brother-in-law is a police sargeant and amateur photographer. His wife is an elephant keeper. Chuck took a headshot of me in the past, and I just couldn’t resist sharing some of his recent work with you. Which one do you like best?
January 10th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, Quackery Exposed
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The Wall Street Journal recently published an opinion piece written by Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, Dean Ornish, and Rustum Roy. Together they argue that Americans need to focus on healthy diet and exercise to prevent and reverse some of their diseases and conditions. This is obviously good advice – and an approach that mainstream medicine has been promoting for decades (well, technically millennia). What irks me is that they seem to suggest that this is “alternative medicine” that they (without help from the medical establishment) are fighting hard to have it included (or integrated) into general practice.
There is nothing “alternative” about healthy diet and exercise. This is mainstream, science-based medicine. The problem with Chopra and Weil is that they argue for obviously healthy behaviors and then integrate them with placebos (acupuncture and meditation have not been demonstrated to have value beyond their placebo effects) in some kind of guru’s proprietary recipe for good health.
Why not promote what has been shown to work – healthy diet and regular exercise – and leave out the placebo treatments? Why must “good health” be inexorably linked to specific culture-based practices? Why should people feel pressured to practice yoga, distract themselves with needles in their ears, or participate in Eastern meditation to be well? And why should Obama heed Chopra et al.’s call to: “make [alternative medicine practices] an integral part of his health plan as soon as possible.”
In this economy where budgets are stretched thin and healthcare service shortages are bound to worsen, the last thing we need to do is fund and promote placebo medicine. Rational people want to figure out which medical treatments and lifestyle behaviors are effective for preventive health and disease management – and focus exclusively on those interventions. It’s time to stop wasting money on scientifically-debunked therapies. We don’t have the luxury of paying for placebos like energy medicine, homeopathy, and acupuncture – let’s focus on the basics, beginning with eating healthy, portion-controlled food and getting regular exercise. That’s not alternative medicine. It’s just common sense.
January 9th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Medblogger Shout Outs, Medical Art
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My friend and fellow blogger Kerri Morrone Sparling has created a photo montage (one photo taken each day for 365 consecutive days) of her life with diabetes. It is a fascinating pictorial experience that somehow captures the reality of the disease – and living life to the fullest despite daily blood sugar monitoring.
Please take the time to experience it here.
