Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

A Thank You A Day…

This is a guest post by Dr. John Schumann.

**********

I just read the book “365 Thank Yous” by John Kralik. I heard an interview with the author on NPR and it caught my attention.

Kralik had been down on his luck in 2007: Divorced twice, overweight, with a struggling law firm that he’d started, he was also failing in a new romantic relationship. He was worried about losing his seven-year-old daughter, too, in a custody dispute.

He made a momentous decision: Instead of feeling sorry for himself (easy to do given his predicaments), he decided to be grateful for what he had. To show it, he vowed to write a thank-you note every day for the next year. What do you think happened?

His life changed for the better. His relationship improved. His clients started paying their bills and his firm’s financial footing solidified. His health improved. He eventually achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a judge. To top it off, he turned his personal quest into a writing project. Within minutes of writing a book proposal, he received responses from agents who hoped to shepherd his project. Every writer’s dream.

I’ll grant you that it sounds hokey. But there are a couple of things the book demonstrated to me. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Baby Boomers 2011: A “New Frontier” With Few Guideposts

This is a guest post by Dr. John Schumann.

**********

In 2011, the first wave of baby boomers will turn 65 years old. Sixty-five still has currency because that’s the age at which non-disabled Americans are eligible to be covered under the Medicare program (now itself having reached middle age).

As our economy continues to recover (hopefully) from the Great Recession, the entrance of millions of Americans to the Medicare rolls over the next decade and a half will be a formidable planning challenge. Look at this chart to see how the baby boomers population has surged:

So is the promise of healthcare reform (the “PPACA“), which will enlarge Medicaid by an additional 16 million Americans — about half of the projected growth in coverage for those currently uninsured.

A couple of recent patient encounters got me thinking about these phenomena, and how we are very much in historically uncharted territory. Never have we had so many living so well for so long. We have an entire generation of people reaching “seniority” who will continue to want the most out of life, without many guideposts on how to achieve it. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Remembering Gene Goldwasser: Discoverer Of EPO, A Cure For Anemia In Dialysis Patients

balloon illustration

Gene Goldwasser died last week. He was 88, and he was my friend.

I wrote previously about a series of conversations I conducted with Gene and Rabbi A.J. Wolf a few years ago. I met Gene one spring day after calling to invite him to sit in on a class I was teaching to a small group of medical students about social issues in healthcare.

I’d read about him in a book called “The $800 Million Pill,” by Merrill Goozner. In the book, Goozner writes the story of Gene’s two-decade hunt to isolate the hormone erythropoietin (EPO).

Part of the story relates how Gene tried to interest traditional big pharma companies in his discovery, only to be brushed aside. Instead, Gene wound up sharing his discovery with what became Amgen. The company went on to make a windfall from recombinant production of the hormone and licensing it as a drug for patients with anemia and kidney failure. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Caregiver Burden

It was a straightforward phone message (names changed): “Hey Dr. S., this is Bobbie Jones, April Dixon’s granddaughter. I was calling to inform you that April passed away today at City Hospital. They said she was bleeding in her stomach or something. I’m not quite what sure what happened, but she got real sick. But she’s gone, so, thanks so much. You’ve been a real neat doctor, and it’s been good working with you through the years taking care of my grandmother. Take care. Bye.”

Bobbie Jones is a saint. Pure and simple. She took care of her 88-year-old grandmother with tender, loving care. I am certain if left to the vagaries of the “healthcare system” that her grandmother would have died at least three years ago, maybe earlier.

Ms. Jones will get no recognition. No income. No honors, save this blog post which she’ll never see. She will get a letter from me, expressing my condolences and appreciation for the love and care that she provided her grandma. She singlehandedly advocated for an octogenarian with advanced dementia and probable cancer (we were never able to get a definitive diagnosis of it) and gave her a quality of life that I would want were I in her grandma’s shoes. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Snorin’ In The USA

Guest post by Dr. John Henning Schumann

I’m not a drum banger for the latest “epidemics” to come to media attention, whether it’s H1N1, Vitamin D, or getting your kids CAT-scanned routinely.

But there comes a time in every blogger’s life when he must comment on something that does bubble up into consciousness a tad, shall we say, often.

I’m talking here about an epidemic that we are learning more about each passing day. Something that you or someone you know or sleep with may be diagnosed with, and ultimately treated for (an interesting national problem in its own right): Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

What is it, you ask? A new national scourge? Stop the presses! Can I catch it? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles