December 7th, 2009 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Crisis, Culture, Emergency Medicine, Health Insurance, Health Lifestyles, Healthcare reform, Internal Medicine, Personal Responsibility, Welfare
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I got an email today laying out the reality of our current health care debate. Is it a crisis of culture or a health care crisis. I am a firm believer in taking responsibility for one’s actions. I believe those who chose not to practice healthy lifestyles should pay more for the consequences of their actions than those who do. I believe the solution to our health care finance quandary lies not in controlling the cost of treating disease, but rather in upholding the personal responsibility all Americans have to themselves and their country.
What does the distribution of health care dollars look like among the American population? While we know that 50% of our population spends only 3% of health care dollars, we also know that 50% of our health care dollars are spent by 5% of our population, a population of chronic disease sufferers who’s diseases are, by and large, a direct result of the personal decisions they chose to make on a daily basis. For the most part, genetics alone is no longer an excuse. We knew very well that lifestyle directly affects the expression of disease by genes. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist Blog*
December 6th, 2009 by Shadowfax in Better Health Network, True Stories
Tags: Cardiology, CHF, Chronic Pain, Emergency Medicine, ER Shift, SVT
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Crummy shift the other night: 23 patients in eight hours, and 21 of them were painful. For me, that is, not necessarily for the patients. Lots of worried well, influenza, some minor injuries and a few chronic pain players. Not a single sick one in the lot. One particularly irksome case was a chronic pain patient dumped on our ER from a neighboring ER, complete with discharge instructions reading “Go to (name of our hospital).” So by the end of my shift I was pretty well burnt out. But the last two patients put an interesting perspective on the night.
The first was a 99 year-old man. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
December 6th, 2009 by KerriSparling in Better Health Network, True Stories
Tags: Calories, Carbohydrates, Diabetes, Endocrinology, Frustration, insulin, Internal Medicine, Patient Stories, Pie, Type 1
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Over the last few weeks, I have had a few run-ins with the gentlest of diabetes police – people who don’t mean to be second-guessing me or asking me why I’m eating that, but still, they can’t help but ask. Sometimes their questions are subtle and we end up having a quiet, private discussion about what type 1 diabetes means to my life, and I welcome these opportunities as ways to help educate and advocate.
But other times, when I’m at the table with a piece of pie in my hand and about to sink my fork into it, knowing full-well that I am at a very good blood sugar and have bolused for the pie carefully, and someone asks, “Why are you eating that?” … I feel completely defeated. And embarrassed. Can’t a girl have dessert without being questioned? And when questioned, why isn’t my explanation good enough to justify my actions?
I’d like to be a person with diabetes who sits down for dinner and eats with everyone without the scrutiny. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
December 6th, 2009 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, Humor, True Stories
Tags: Coffee, Electricity, Emergency Medicine, Power Outage
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I like living on the edge of built-up civilization, but it means our little development has one electric line coming in.
Today it wanted some time off, fortunately only 4 hours. Didn’t get that cold inside, but having an all electric house has some drawbacks in that circumstance.
My wife figured out the electric-less coffee, thankfully.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
December 5th, 2009 by David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D. in Announcements, Better Health Network
Tags: Institute For Science In Medicine, ISM, Non-Profit, Press Release
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I’ve been writing about the attempts of proponents of various pseudoscience, quackery, and faith-based religious “healing” modalities to slip provisions friendly to their interests into the health care reform bill that is being debated in the Senate. If you want to know what’s at stake, check out the first press release of a newly formed institute designed to promote science-based medicine in academia and public policy, the Institute for Science in Medicine.
It’s an embryonic institute, only recently formed by 42 physicians and scientists, several of whose names will be quite familiar to regular readers of SBM, but it’s jumping right into the fray. This is what the ISM is: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
