Dave deBronkart is a Freedom Fighter. In 2007, Dave battled metastatic cancer and emerged a passionate advocate for leveraging the Web to connect patients with the content and support and inspiration they need to cope with the human consequences of disease.
The Web has brought forth new ways of connecting the world and brings with it questions and answers about how to safely and effectively extend the power of health care from face-to-face meetings to remote but important regions of human experience. It’s important for us to understand the integrative nature of health care: no single perspective will yield approaches that work. Rather, we will need the perspective of all participants. Read more »
With the holidays upon us and our country still facing a challenging economic crisis, many families are struggling with how to balance celebrating and spending without disappointing their children.
From news stories to Facebook postings, families are expressing clear concern for how to celebrate this year, what to buy for their kids and how much money to spend. They want to be honest with their kids yet shelter them from their adult financial concerns at the same time. Moreover, they feel guilty because this year was supposed to be different because last year they had the same stresses and concerns. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr Gwenn Is In*
One of the great blessings of my life is that my 91-year-old father, whom I dearly love, lives in the apartment building next door. After sixty-six years of marriage, he’s been living alone since my mother’s death last March. He is still sharp as a tack, as he might say. Read more »
Across the country health insurance coverage for smoking cessation treatment - both counseling and medications – has been extremely patchy. For example, we ask all the new patients attending our smoking cessation clinic in New Jersey if their insurance covers smoking cessation treatment, and the vast majority have no idea. Typically its also not easy for either the patient or provider to find out either. It doesn’t just depend on the insurer, but on the plan, the type of service, what they’ve already had in terms of preventive care. We’ve had many occasions where we call the insurer twice on the same day and get a different answer. And New Jersey is a state that is supposed to have relatively good insurance coverage for tobacco cessation! So it’s a mess nationwide, and the net result is that fewer patients get the treatment they need because they are put of by the uncertainty about the cost and difficulty finding out how much it is. Read more »
A close relative recently underwent hip replacement at the Texas Orthopedic Hospital in Houston’s Texas Medical Center. She raved about her surgeon, Dr Richard Kearns. I had the opportunity to sit by her bed while he made his evening rounds (he didn’t know I was a physician until we were introduced at the end of his visit).
These are the qualities seem to make him successful:
Approachable.
He bridged the technical gap that often separates patient and surgeon. He used carefully chosen language
and examples the average person can understand.
Flipping through my current copy of The Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society, I was surprised to see this case report (full reference below) of a 30.8 pound cystosarcoma phyllodes of the breast. The accompanying photos are impressive. Many questions filled my head – Why did the woman wait so long to seek care? How did she manage to physically do her daily chores on the farm? How did she manage to find clothing to wear?
I scanned this photo in from the article. The patient’s history is as follows: Read more »
Many parents of children with autism have expressed to me their dismay that the anti-vaccine lobby is sucking all the oxygen out of the room for autism awareness. They feel that just being a parent of a child with autism makes others assume that they are anti-vaccine. They also worry that resources and attention are being diverted from promising legitimate research because of all the attention being paid to the failed vaccine hypothesis.
So it is good to occasionally focus on mainstream autism research to show that progress is being made, despite the unfortunate anti-vaccine sideshow. Read more »
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported an analysis of motorcycle helmet use in fatal crashes. What was discovered is not surprising - namely, that in states in which there is not a state helmet law, the odds of a rider in a single-vehicle (e.g., the motorcycle) crash wearing a helmet was 72% less than in states with a helmet law. So, absent a law, people are not particularly inclined to wear a helmet.
One needs to couple this information with the facts about the benefits of wearing motorcycle helmets. First, motorcyle fatalities and fatality rates are increasing at a time when motorcycle riding is becoming more popular. Second, the average age of motorcycle fatalities has moved up to 39 years, from 30 years nearly 20 years ago, probably because the age of motorcycle riders has increased. Third, motorcycles expose the drivers more directly to lethal forces than do enclosed vehicles. Helmets are essential to prevent brain injuries and deaths. Read more »
Three of my children love to play the game ‘Life,’ where players choose college or career and are paid, take out loans, pay taxes, have families and all the rest as they navigate towards retirement. I especially love playing with them when they each become frantic, not for the highest income, but to finish the game with the most children. Along the way, my daughter is even naming her kids as the tiny blue and pink pegs fill up her little plastic car. (Talk about your parental validation!)
But after playing, then thinking back on my week at work, I fear that we could easily make a new game that was more familiar to many modern kids. I suppose we’d have to call it ‘The Game of Death,’ or maybe just ‘The Game of Pain.’ Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
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I interviewed Captain Steve Blankenship, the Managing Director of Veterans Initiatives at American Airlines.
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Dave deBronkart is a Freedom Fighter. In 2007, Dave battled metastatic cancer and emerged a passionate advocate for leveraging the Web to connect patients with the content and support and inspiration they need to cope with the human consequences of disease.
