I love “free shower” – which, if you’re diabetic and using an insulin pump or a CGM, you know that means “the shower when you’re changing sites and you don’t have any hubs connected to you.”
It’s nice to lather up and not worry about catching on an infusion set or a sensor edge. Thing is, this is what’s waiting for me when I’m done getting all cleaned up:
The potlock o’ diabetes crap
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
Last week, I was honored to learn that the ACP Advocate blog was selected by voters in a national competition as the Best Health Policy/Ethics blog of 2009. Yesterday, ACP issued a news release announcing the award, in which I am quoted as saying that the blog “seeks to inform and entertain readers and to elicit thoughtful commentary from across the political spectrum, not just from ACP members but from others with an interest in health policy.”
Awards and recognition are nice, but what I enjoy most is making readers aware of interesting ideas, studies, and commentary that otherwise might not have come to your attention. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
DrRich is pleased to note that events have so quickly confirmed the explanation he gave, in his last post, regarding what the health insurance companies are up to by choosing to massively increase insurance premiums at this critical juncture. The insurance companies, to repeat, are willfully embracing their assigned role as “villain,” in order to get apparently stalled healthcare reforms back on track.
A mere few hours after DrRich had posted, Kathleen Sibelius issued a press release angrily documenting several additional requests for large rate increases by health insurance companies all across the land, and pointedly reminding us regular folks that healthcare reform would prevent these greedy companies from committing such abusive and harmful acts. And thus has the administration now officially established runaway health insurance premiums as the crisis of the moment. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
I’d like to recommend this article (full reference below) to anyone involved in the care of palliative care patients, as well as anyone who does wound care. It is a thoughtful and well written consensus paper from the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel.
The article begins by pointing out the difference in goals between palliative care patients and the usual patients with pressure ulcers (PrU).
Usual care of a PrU is designed to promote healing; however, healing or closing the ulcer in patients receiving palliative care is often improbable. Therefore, the focus of care is better directed to reduce or eliminate pain, odor, and infection and allow for an environment that can promote ulcer closure, as well as improve self-image to help prevent social isolation.
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
“I started phlegming up a couple of days ago and my tonsils are huge and banging against the side walls.”
Ladies and gentlemen, doctors, patients, scientists, artists and assorted visitors, I don’t pretend to understand humanity, or the human condition. I don’t know all there is to know about medicine. But I do know a great piece of prose when I see it. And this, dear friends, rises to poetry.
Phlegmingly yours,
Edwin
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
