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Handling One’s Emotions In A Survival Situation

Perhaps the greatest thrill in attending a summer meeting of the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) is listening to new, enthusiastic and exciting speakers. They bring new insights and opinions to numerous topics and discussions, which is an essential part of the educational process. This past summer, at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the WMS held in Snowmass, Colorado, Dr. Drew Watters from the Indiana University School of Medicine approached the audience with his observations about neurobiology and survival. It was an innovative approach to a very common topic within wilderness medicine. How does one account for and handle emotions in a time of stress, including the most stressful situation of all—namely, a survival situation? When is it better to think, rather than to react? The objectives of his presentation were to understand to a certain extent survival, the anatomy of thought and perception, the neurobiology of emotions, behavior, emotive and cognitive decisions, and implementation of interventions in situations dominated by emotion.

Anyone who has practiced wilderness medicine knows that bad things happen, sometimes despite the best preparations and intentions. People make bad decisions that can too often be characterized as dumb. If they follow with more bad decisions, the situation Read more »

This post, Handling One’s Emotions In A Survival Situation, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..

How Is The Quality Of Healthcare Determined?

How do you calibrate care so that it is neither too much nor too little? In this collection of recent posts, health care professionals search for that “just right” level of care.

“I bet celebrities and other VIPs (as they’re known in hospitals) get some of the worst healthcare in America. And, when I mean worst, I mean the most,” says Jay Parkinson in a recent post. Parkinson explores what is publically known about Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs’ care and calls specific attention to “incidentalomas.” Parkinson describes these asymptomatic tumors, sometimes discovered by especially aggressive care, and suggests that they may be over-treated, leading to poor health outcomes.

Mark W. Browne asks, Is the health quality bar set high enough? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*

The Problem With Dermal Fillers

From Forbes:

But today, a range of dermal fillers can be injected into those crow’s feet, marionette lines, thinning lips and furrows between the brows, taking years off the face–and all can be done during your lunch hour, with no invasive surgery and little recovery time.
Source: forbes.com/2009/05/26/dermal-filler-cosmetic-forbes-woman-well-being-facelift.html

I love how the press tends to make it seem like Dermal Fillers are the solution for which we have all been waiting. They make it an issue of just “choosing the right one.”

The issue here is that dermal fillers Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*

No Data Is Better Than Bad Data: A Case Report Of Drug Misinformation

I have said that the best tool for treating atrial fibrillation (AF) is education. I still strongly believe this, perhaps more then ever.

AF presents itself to people in so many different ways–from no symptoms to incapacitation. Likewise, the treatments for AF range from simple reassurance and lifestyle changes, to taking a medicine, and on to having a complex ablation[s].

Because knowledge is so important to patients with AF, I encourage them to do outside research. This surely means going on-line. The problem, of course, comes with assessing the quality of information. It reminds me of what an old professor used to profess, “no data is better than bad data.”

What’s more, the vast diversity of AF makes comparing notes with friends problematic. One person’s wonder drug may be another’s poison.

Last week, this provocative AF headline came through on one of my Google Alert emails: 

“Flecainide Treatment Linked to Sudden Cardiac Death.” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

Nurse Prompts Are Key To Successful Implementation Of ICU Safety Measures

Over the last few years, you may have heard a lot about the value of checklists in ICU medicine and their ability to reduce mortality, reduce cost and reduce length of stay.   But a recent study took the concept one step further and suggested that checklists by themselves may not be  effective unless physicians are prompted to act on the checklist.

As reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Journal, a single site cohort study performed at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s medical intensive care unit compared two rounding groups of physicians.  One group was prompted to use the checklist.  The other group of physicians had access to the checklist but were not prompted to use it.

What they found was shocking.  Both groups had access to the checklist.  However, patients followed by physicians who were prompted to use the checklist had Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy 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…

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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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