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The Power Of A Community: A Paradigm Shift To Be Grateful For

Last week (was it only a week ago?  My time-space continuum is completely off kilter these days), I was out in San Francisco for a quick visit at the Lifescan Town Hall meeting.

Okay, I was actually in Milpitas, which is a nice little place that the driver from the airport inadvertently described as, “Why are you going there?” Not exactly the same excitement as the home of the Golden Gate Bridge and other sights I saw from the car, but close.

I was asked to come out and talk about life with diabetes to a large group of Lifescan employees (they make the One Touch meters and they clearly like people who play guitar because Crystal Bowersox and B.B. King are their buddies, so I felt a little musically inept).  I wasn’t asked to talk about my meter, or my pump, or to pimp out any partnerships, etc.  They just wanted to hear about life with diabetes.  Plain life.  Real life.

Because I don’t have a formal bone in my body (all of my bones are in sweatpants and baseball caps), and because I didn’t have any airs to put on, I just stood on that stage showed them our community.  I showed them some of our blogs, and talked about some of our meet-ups.  I showed them that while life with diabetes can be challenging, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

How Cancer Survivors Are Picking Themselves Up And Moving Past The Worry

Thank God television and movie script writers are starting to “get it.” Cancer, “The Big C,” doesn’t always kill people, or maim them, or steal their dreams. Lately there have been new TV shows acknowledging cancer as part of life that many can live through. There’s a new movie coming called 50/50 about a young adult man with cancer (important to acknowledge it in this age group!). I hope he doesn’t die in the end. But from the preview, it’s clear he talks to people about it – including young women he is trying to date. It’s a comedy. On Showtime on cable TV there’s a series, The Big C, where actress Laura Linney plays a teacher with melanoma and a year to live. The good news is they had a second season!

My point is there are now nearly 12 million cancer survivors. Three of work them at Patient Power (one is me, almost 61, one is in her 50’s, one is just 18). More and more of us do not have just months or a year to live. We are true survivors. We have to start watching our cholesterol and taking baby aspirins, we have to watch our weight, plan for retirement or manage a fixed income. For the young one, it’s plan for college. We have to think about who we might vote for in the next election. We are LIVING! Maybe for a full lifespan, maybe not, but living each day with purpose.

Yes, it’s true there could be “another shoe” that drops, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*

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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