June 29th, 2011 by Dinah Miller, M.D. in Health Tips
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For those who don’t follow the comment sections of posts, there have been commenters who have been telling us about the awful experiences they have had as psychiatric patients. In particular (but not exclusively) as hospital inpatients. Commenters have used terms like “abuse” and “humiliation” and describe awful scenarios. One person asked why the mean nurses don’t get fired, everyone knows they are mean including the staff. Others throw the baby out with the bath water, one bad experience. There is implication by at least one commenter that he/she would rather die (presumably permanently) rather than face a day on a psych unit again. The suffering in these posts is palpable.
To those who feel better after leaving comments on Shrink Rap, by all means, feel free to continue, but this will not change the world. May I put in a request? If you’ve had an awful experience as a patient on a psychiatric unit, please tell the hospital. One commenter said she (/he?) complained to the hospital administration and heard that some changes were made. My thoughts? You Go Girl! (If the commenter was a male, I’m at a loss. Way to Go, Joe! perhaps?) Complain, it can’t hurt.
Oh, you say, no one listens to psychiatric patients, they just say we’re crazy so they don’t have to listen. For an isolated complaint, you may be right, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
June 29th, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Humor, True Stories
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A physician friend of mine recently bragged that, while driving along a rural South Carolina road, he had stopped, chased a timber-rattler into the bushes, located said rattler, then urinated on it.
‘I wanted to say I had peed on a rattlesnake!’ He beat a hasty retreat (and I imagine a hasty zip-up) when the snake rattled and struck at the air. Who can blame Mr. Snake?
You can take the redneck to medical school, but you’ll just get a redneck with a medical degree.
Which brings me to me. I have to work on our tool-shed/work-shop in the morning. The tool-shed/work-shop is, however, over-run with red-wasps. I counted no less than ten nests inside. These are irritable, contentious creatures with no love of humanity. If they were humans, they would be Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
June 29th, 2011 by Mark Crislip, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
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At home the kids’ current TV show of choice is How I Met Your Mother, supplanting Scrubs as the veg out show in the evening. Both shows are always on a cable channel somewhere and are often broadcast late at night. Late night commercials can be curious, and as I work on projects, I watch the shows and commercials out of the corner of my eye.
Law firms trolling for business seem common. If you or a family member has had a serious stroke, heart attack or death from Avandia, call now. The non-serious deaths? I suppose do not bother. One ad in particular caught my eye: anyone who developed ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease (collectively referred to inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD) after using Accutane, call now. Millions have been awarded.
My eye may have been caught because of my new progressive lenses, but I will admit to an interest in inflammatory bowel disease, having had ulcerative colitis for years until I took the steel cure. It also piqued my interest as these were three conditions among which I could not seen any connections. Accutane, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s. One of these is not like the other. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
June 29th, 2011 by Elaine Schattner, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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This is the second in a series of posts on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care. We should consider the proposal, published in the NEJM, gradually over the course of this summer, starting with “suggested changes in oncologists’ behavior,” #1:
1. Target surveillance testing or imaging to situations in which a benefit has been shown. This point concerns the costs of doctors routinely ordering CTs, MRIs and other imaging exams, besides blood tests, for patients who’ve completed a course of cancer treatment and are thought to be in remission.
The NEJM authors consider that after a cancer diagnosis many patients, understandably, seek reassurance that any recurrence will be detected early, if it happens. Doctors, for their part, may not fully appreciate the lack of benefit of detecting a liver met when it’s 2 cm rather than, say, just 1 cm in size. What’s more, physicians may have a conflict of interest, if they earn ancillary income by ordering lab and imaging tests.
My take:
It’s clear that some and possibly most cancer patients get too many and too frequent post-treatment surveillance tests. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*
June 29th, 2011 by KerriSparling in True Stories
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I do not enjoy basal testing. Even though I sometimes go six hour clips without having a snack (thanks, Birdy and your busy ways), something about knowing I can’t eat or exercise makes me want to do a 5K while simultaneously chomping down on some soft serve.
But when I noticed that I was going to bed at a completely normal blood sugar, but waking up in the 180 – 220 mg/dl range for three days in a row, I knew I needed to do some basal tweaking.
Making adjustments to my overnight basal rates always skeeves me out. I’m a very deep sleeper (as evidenced by the fact that Siah prowling around on the bed all night doesn’t wake me in the slightest, but makes Chris say “We’re sleeping with the door SHUT tonight,” in the morning), and I have a very healthy fear of overnight low blood sugars. My symptoms of a low on the overnights used to be this body-drenching sweat, but since the birth of my daughter, that symptom has all but disappeared. Now, I don’t have any symptoms at all. Blood sugars of 60, 50, and lower don’t even register until I prick my finger and go, “Oh. I guess I’m low?” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
For those who don’t follow the comment sections of posts, there have been commenters who have been telling us about the awful experiences they have had as psychiatric patients. In particular (but not exclusively) as hospital inpatients. Commenters have used terms like “abuse” and “humiliation” and describe awful scenarios. One person asked why the mean nurses don’t get fired, everyone knows they are mean including the staff. Others throw the baby out with the bath water, one bad experience. There is implication by at least one commenter that he/she would rather die (presumably permanently) rather than face a day on a psych unit again. The suffering in these posts is palpable.
