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Nurses Symposium Includes Social Media In Its Conference Curriculum

You Can’t Ignore It…Social Media Networking Isn’t Going to Go Away…

Engaging in social media networking by health care professionals continues to cause hesitation.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding social media networking, nurses at Scripps Cancer Center in San Diego, CA embrace it.  They decided to educate themselves for a deeper understanding of this powerful form of real-time communication.

They are proactive and they step outside the box to gain knowledge to help them navigate through the social media networking maze.

In a recent interview with Guy Kawasaki, New York Times Best-Selling author, co-founder Alltop.com, and former chief evangelist of Apple, Kawasaki talked about the value of companies jumping the curve to excel.  (Kawasaki’s latest book, Enchantment:  The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.)

At the 31st Annual Scripps Oncology Nurses Symposium in San Diego, CA, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Cancer Treatment With Fewer Side Effects

Treating Cancer Better with Reduced Side Effects from Patient Power® on Vimeo.

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

What I Learned At The American Academy Of Psychiatry And Law’s Annual Conference

For new readers, it’s my tradition to put up posts summarizing tidbits I picked up at the annual American Academy of Psychiatry and Law (AAPL) conference. It’s random, it’s not explained in detail, but it’s stuff I thought was interesting.

The conference started out with a keynote speech by AAPL President Stephen Billick. The title of his talk was “Be True To Psychiatry.” His point was that forensic psychiatrists are clinicians first, and that even a forensic evaluation can have therapeutic effects. He cited many examples in his practice in which a criminal or civil evaluation had potential beneficial “side effects” regardless of the forensic opinion. His main point: the forensic psychiatrist’s obligation to be neutral and objective does not preclude kindness. A point well taken, and appreciated.

A session on suicide risk assessment gave a very nice illustration of the basic problem inherent in these assessments: even assuming an “ideal” case situation with a “perfect” psychiatrist, a thorough suicide risk assessment would take four hours. Risk assessment is time consuming and inherently will be incomplete. We make the best decisions we can based on the limited data we have at the time. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

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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