August 1st, 2011 by Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. in Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: Babies, Birth, Children, Doula, Drugs, Healthy Pregnancy, High Risk Pregnancy, Home Delivery, Hypnosis, Labor And Delivery, Labor Pain, Massage Therapy, Medication, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Pregnancy, Sterile Water Injections, TENS, Touch Therapy, Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation
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No one likes pain, least of all pregnant women. Although obstetricians do a great job providing prenatal care and childbirth deliveries, there is always room for improvement regarding patient education.
The management of labor pain is usually delegated to the Anesthesia Department within a hospital or an ambulatory center. The goal of anesthesia is to eliminate physical pain and any suffering that might be a result of pain. However pain and suffering may not always be about cause and effect. To quote the literature, “Although pain and suffering often occur together, one may suffer without pain or have pain without suffering.” Some women want to eliminate pain and others view it as a normal process. However, to the well initiated, it is well known that women who are in pain and “suffering” do not progress as quickly in labor as those who are pain free. For those pregnant moms who would prefer not to have “drugs” here are some options however, please keep in mind that information regarding the safety and effectiveness of these methods is “scientifically” limited, meaning the subjects involved in medical studies to prove whether these methods work or not are small. Having said that, listed below are some of the most popular ways to reduce pain without drugs, however, please consult your physician or healthcare provider prior to using them. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*
August 1st, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Opinion, Research
Tags: Angina, Cardiac Health, Connectedness, Coronary Disease, Happiness, Harvard, Heart Attack, Heart Health, Improved Life Expectancy, Julia Boehm, Life Satisfaction, Martin Seligman, Optimism, Positive Health, Research, Robert Wood Johnson, Stable Marriage, Study Review, University of Pennsylvania, Whitehall II Study
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For centuries, health providers have focused on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. This time-honored paradigm has generated phenomenal advances in medicine, especially during the last 60 years. It has also created a bit of an image problem for providers. That’s because the paradigm encourages consumers to perceive health care as a negative good; an economic term describing a bundle of products and services that we use because we must, not because we want to. Recent trends towards empowered consumers are a symptom of this problem more than a solution to it, as I described here.
Recently, the concept of Positive Health has emerged as a possible antidote for the malaise.
Pioneered by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, Positive Health encourages us to identify and promote positive health assets—which Seligman describes as strengths that contribute to a healthier, more fulfilling life and yes, improved life expectancy as well. According to Seligman, “people desire well-being in its own right and they desire it above and beyond the relief of their suffering.”
Proponents of Positive Health have proposed that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
August 1st, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in News, Opinion
Tags: Collaborative Training, Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctors, Empathetic Doctors, Empathy, Health 2.0, Hospitals, Leadership Experiences, Med School curriculum, Medical School, Scholarly Excellence, SELECT Program, Teleos Leadership Institute, University of Pennsylvania, University of South Florida, USF, Wharton School of Finance
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Can we teach empathy to the next generation of physicians? The University of South Florida Health thinks so and they’re putting it on the line this week with the launch of the SELECT program, a new curriculum intended to “put empathy, communication and creativity back into doctoring.”
The SELECT (Scholarly Excellence. Leadership Experiences. Collaborative Training.) program will offer 19 select students unique training in leadership development as well as the scholarly tools needed to become physician leaders and catalysts for change. During their first week on campus, instead of the old-style medical school tradition of heading to the gross anatomy lab, SELECT students are immersed in leadership training centered in empathy and other core principles of patient-centered care.
The hope is that this program will prepare the next generation of departmental chairmen, CMOs and physician thought leaders through more intense, non-traditional preparation.
Students will Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
July 31st, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Emergency Department, Emergency Medicine, EMS, EMTALA, Meningitis, Public Health, Safety Net, Surgical Follow-Up, Underfunded ER, Understaffed ER, Urgent Care
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Last night I was contacted by a physician in the local urgent-care. I like him, and we made polite, but brief, conversation. ‘So, are you guys busy?’
I gave him the status report. ‘Well, yeah. We have about 25 people waiting to be seen the waiting room is full and every patient room is full. Also, we just received a gun-shot wound to the head by EMS.’
‘Wow, sounds terrible! So, here’s what I need to send you…’
What he sent was, in fact, reasonable. A young woman with signs and symptoms of meningitis (who was treated earlier in the day for and upper respiratory virus…with Amoxicillin, of course.)
She needed a lumbar puncture, which I performed and which was negative.
But I had this thought. I could probably have said, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
July 30th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Health Reform, Healthcare Innovations, Local Licensing Requirements, Lower Credentialing Requirements, medicaid, Modernization of Medicine, Physician Shortage, Primary Care, Public Health, Rural Access, Rural America, Rural Areas, Specialists, Technology, Telehealth, Telemedicine, UnitedHealth, Urban Providers
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The UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform and Modernization released a white paper today on Modernizing Rural Health Care. To quote from the UHG presser,
- [The paper] projects an increase of around 5 million newly insured rural residents by 2019 – even as the number of physicians in rural America lags
- Quality of care is rated lower in rural areas in 7 out of every 10 health care markets; both physicians and consumers in rural areas more likely to rate quality of care lower than those in urban and suburban markets
- Innovations in care delivery – particularly telemedicine and telehealth – can absorb future strain on rural health care systems
The paper inventories the current state of health care for the 50 million Americans living in a rural setting — and it’s not pretty. The question, of course, is why does rural health compare unfavorably to urban health metrics, and what can be done to improve matters? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
No one likes pain, least of all pregnant women. Although obstetricians do a great job providing prenatal care and childbirth deliveries, there is always room for improvement regarding patient education.
