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Conversations At An HIV Clinic: Medication Costs And Side Effects

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“I like your watch,” pharmacist Jin Jun tells me as I’m sitting down to interview him.

I have a plastic runner’s watch, nothing special, but I see Jun is wearing something similar. “Do you run?” I ask him.

Jun is a tall, personable man who runs marathons, it turns out, and he enthusiastically invites me to run in a 5K race this weekend. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it but I ask him for the details anyway.

Jun is equally passionate about his job, which one day a week involves helping the patients at the Carolinas Medical Center Infectious Disease Clinic with HIV drug adherence. I ask him how he handles cases like LaShana Walker’s, where some days she just doesn’t feel like taking her medications because they make her so nauseous. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*

Update From Haiti: Despair Sets In And Women Consider Suicide

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jangurleyDr. Jan Gurley just returned from a mission trip to Haiti, 5 weeks after the earthquake hit. In this audio clip, she relays a horrific first-hand account of the current realities of life in Port Au Prince. With no running water, bathrooms, or place to shelter – and packed into a field with 100,000 people – some young women are choosing to stop drinking water in an effort to commit suicide.

Dr. Gurley describes the loss of human dignity associated with the crisis in Haiti, including a near stampede when sanitary napkins were offered in a crowd of women. She explains that the place is becoming dangerous – and the screams of women being raped in the night fill the dark air. In the day time, people huddle together for safety while the stench of rotting corpses surrounds them. With the rainy season approaching, and tent cities perched precariously on land-slide prone hills, Dr. Gurley predicts a second wave of disease, violence, despair, and death in Haiti.

[Audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/haitiupdategurley.mp3]

Video: Tips For Managing Phobias

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Phobias, such as the fear of flying, elevators or public speaking can disrupt people’s lives. Dr. Jon LaPook talks with psychologist Robert Reiner about how to overcome these fears with the help of virtual reality.


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Dr. Val Gives ABC News A Sneak Preview Of The Largest Health IT Convention Of The Year: HIMSS In Atlanta

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This year, the Better Health team will be offering live coverage of healthcare’s largest tech conference: HIMSS in Atlanta, March 1-4. Three medical bloggers, Dr. Val Jones, Dr. Mike Sevilla, and Dr. Nick Genes will interview over 40 different exhibitors and stream their interviews live via UStream. You can ask questions of the interviewees by submitting questions to @drval during the event. Dr. Val Jones will report to ABC News, DC via Skype from the convention floor on Wednesday, March 3rd at 10:50am. Here’s a sneak preview of HIMSS:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v96kje6mCRU

Stay tuned to the Better Health blog for more information about HIMSS coverage… Or meet Dr. Val at HIMSS during her “Meet The Bloggers” panel discussion. Read more »

The American Medical News’ Secret To Twitter Success: Copy Editor, Pam Wood

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amednewsConnoisseurs of Twitter feeds know when an account is being managed by interesting minds. So when I took a moment to express my appreciation to American Medical News for their contributions to Twitter, it was not surprising that a group of doctors immediately joined the chorus. We all knew that @amednews was a reliable source of entertaining and important information from multiple sources, but we didn’t know the person behind the account… until today.

Pam Wood is the Chief Copy Editor for American Medical News, and has cultivated a loyal following of healthcare professionals and patients on Twitter. I asked her to join me on a phone call to explain the secrets to her success. I’m sure you’ll enjoy getting to know the person behind the tweets @amednews.

[Audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/pamwood.mp3]

Dr. Val: Tell me a little bit about yourself – where you’re from, your educational background, and what you’ve been doing at the AMA. Read more »

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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