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5 Tips On How To Be A Healthcare Survivalist

There are plenty of “survivalists” out there who stock their basements with canned goods, getting ready for some unexpected (and unlikely) apocalypse. Meanwhile there are things that are much more likely to happen to you — like getting sick — which many of us don’t prepare for at all. So to help you get started, here are five important tips on how you can become a healthcare survivalist:

1.  Take care of your chronic conditions. Whether it’s high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, depression, asthma or any other kind of ailment, do what it takes to manage your own care. Take your medications and follow your doctors’ instructions. Why? Because if you don’t, your condition can get worse and lead to even more serious problems. As much of a pain as it may (literally) be, there’s a reason the old saying “an ounce of prevention” still resonates today — because it’s true.

2.  Live a healthy lifestyle. Everyone gives you this advice, but with studies showing that 42% of Americans will be obese by 2050, it doesn’t seem to be getting through. Denial can wonderfully appealing;  but when it comes to your health, it can also kill you. Stop smoking, exercise, and eat right. You may find that your employer has programs in place that will help you do all of those things, and many of them work. Why not give one of them a try? You can’t improve your life all at once, but you can start. Your life will be happier if you keep yourself healthy. So rather than whistling past the graveyard, jog past it. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*

Vacation Unplugging: How Important Is It?

It’s a post you’ll see periodically: Blogger goes on vacation and goes dark from his blog and Twitter. This spawns the requisite post detailing how nice it was to be away. Refreshed and all the stronger, we hear about the lessons from playing parchese, listening to the crickets sing, and ignoring the purr from Tweetdeck.

[Recently] I have been on vacation, but I didn’t necessarily unplug. I screened for critical emails once a day. I had prewritten and scheduled a couple of posts, but they didn’t require much maintenance. Besides that, I was too busy boogie boarding, kayaking, and eating crab cakes to really look at Twitter. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*

6 Tips To A Simpler Lifestyle

I like to pass on good tips, and these ways to simplify your life make a lot of sense. The constant stress we feel because life is so complicated isn’t good for our health. Here are six tips to have a simpler lifestyle:

1. De-Clutter Your Home

Look around. If you have piles of paper, too many “things” and nic-nacs laying around, it’s hard to think clearly and function. An open, clear space allows our minds to feel open and more peaceful. Tackle one room at a time. Be ruthless and donate or toss everything that isn’t useful, beautiful, or has special memories.

2. Limit Family Activities

Try to force family members to choose only those activities that are most important. Many of us are over-scheduled and have no time to “just see where the day will take us.” Thirty years ago no stores were open on Sundays and there wasn’t much to do except go on picnics or just hang out with friends and family. It’s okay to “veg out” and may even be good for your family’s health. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Too Much Testing And Treatment? Try Superb Primary Care

The Associated Press has been running a fantastic series of must reads with the latest article highlighting the consequence of too many imaging studies, like X-rays and CT scans, which are the biggest contributor to an individual’s total radiation exposure in a lifetime. Americans get more imaging radiation exposure and testing than people from other industrialized countries.

Reasons for doing too many tests include malpractice fear, patient demands for imaging, the difficulty in obtaining imaging results from other doctors or hospitals, as well as advanced technologies, like coronary angioplasty, which have increased radiation but avoid a far more invasive surgery like heart bypass. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*

How Much Does A Heart Attack Cost?

Money HeartHow much would a heart attack cost you? Quite a bit, according to CBS MoneyWatch.com:

According to an article from the National Business Group on Health, the average total [editor’s note: lifetime] cost of a severe heart attack -– including direct and indirect costs -– is about $1 million. Direct [lifetime] costs include charges for hospitals, doctors and prescription drugs, while indirect costs include lost productivity and time away from work. The average [lifetime] cost of a less-severe heart attack is about $760,000. Amortized over 20 years, that’s $50,000 per year for a severe heart attack and $38,000 per year for a less-severe heart attack.

I’m all for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but before we get all hot and bothered about performing more testing to “prevent” a heart attack as a means to save healthcare costs going forward, remember the lessons we learned from the Tim Russert fallout. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

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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