January 22nd, 2010 by Gwenn Schurgin O'Keeffe, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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My daughter really wants an iTouch. She’s 12…a tween. We heard nothing about this until recently when a friend was over who happened to have been given one for a holiday gift. It turns out that many of her friends have them now so she feels like iPods are suddenly passe.
Instead of asking us for one or concocting a plan to put it on her next birthday list, she came up with the idea to earn enough money for it by doing chores around the house. Pointing out the amount of chores and likely time frame to sock away $200-300 bucks was not a deterrent, at least not out of the gate. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Gwenn Is In*
January 22nd, 2010 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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Even though its really cold outside in much of the U.S., it’s sunny in northern California and with a hooded sweatshirt, every day is a beach day! So, after a couple of nice days in the snowy mountains, I headed for the coast. On my first step onto the sand, I was reminded to write about a phenomenon that was called to my attention by a reader last April:
“Coast Guard Seeks Tar Source
By Janine Zúñiga
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
CORONADO — The Coast Guard is investigating the source of sticky tar balls that washed up on Coronado’s shores over the weekend. Emergency crews…worked amid bathing-suit-clad beach-goers, picking up pieces of tar that a city lifeguard first noticed Saturday afternoon. Read more »
This post, How To Get Tar Off Your Skin, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
January 22nd, 2010 by JessicaBerthold in Better Health Network, News
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The Philadelphia Inquirer had an interesting piece Monday about a successful initiative in Camden, NJ (one of the poorest cities in the U.S.) that has dramatically reduced ED visits and readmissions. Among other things, a coalition of primary care providers has banded together to get more patients to see PCPs instead of going straight to the ED. (Appropriate patients are referred from the ED to these providers, for eg). Open-access scheduling, electronic prescribing and chronic disease registries also further the goal of preventive medicine that keeps patients from getting to the point where they need to go to the ED, or need to be admitted to the hospital.
The result? Monthly ED visits down by 32%, hospital admissions–and charges–down by 56%. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*
January 22nd, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Research
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If you’ve spent anytime on The Happy Hospitalist in the last two years, you know I am a strong believer in lifestyle as the only solution to an economic disaster we find ourselves in. One recently reported television health statistic confirms, once again, the strong correlation between lifestyle and early death.
I blogged previously about studies showing an 80% reduction in heart disease, strokes, cancer and diabetes by adhering to lifestyle choices proven to save lives. America is a nation of couch potatoes. Everyday I see families, doctors and nurses taking the elevator up on story to the next floor above. What ever happened to using the stairs for a little self sacrifice?
The television health statistics in this country are alarming. How many hours a week do Americans spend watching television? 1 How does 31 hours a week sound. That’s amazing. I have one or two shows a week that I watch, if I’m lucky. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist Blog*
January 21st, 2010 by Debra Gordon in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
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Back in the day when I was a newspaper reporter I completed a biomedical ethics fellowship at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, VA. In addition to sitting in on the hospital’s bioethics committee discussions, I spent much of the week shadowing a nurse in the ICU.
They called her the Death Nurse because her job was to intervene with doctors, nurses, patients and families when the time came for a patient to move from the ICU to hospice. While her title was Supportive Care, she flat out told her me her job was to help people die; not actively, but from behind the scenes by helping patients and those caring for them understand when the time had come to move from curative care to supportive care (email me if you’d like a copy of the article I wrote about her). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Debra Gordon on Medical Writing (and other medical topics of interest)*
