I don't know about you, but I'm more interested in what Steve is going to say tomorrow verses the State of the Union address from Washington. What many people fear (me included) is the possibility that instead of the awesomeness of an iPhone type announcement - what we'll get instead is along the lines of the "mac cube" which flopped a year after it was triumphantly brought out by Steve. We'll see what happens tomorrow....
Blog
2009 Medgadget Weblog Award Finalists
Yes kids, it's that time of year again when we vote for our favorite medical weblogs for the previous year. This is of course from our friends at Medgadget. And, you can take a look at all the finalists here. In 2008, I had the honor of having Dr. Nick Genes on Doctor Anonymous Show number 19 to talk all about the Medgadget Medblog Awards. You can listen on the player below. Or, you can download the show here and listen anytime.
Later that month in Jan 2008, Nick returned to the show with the other Medgadget guys to make a final push for voting that year. I believe even Mr. Paul Levy himself called into the show trying to get himself some votes. Listen in the player below or download Dr. A Show 21 right here.
Now, the category that is near and dear to my heart is the Best New Medical Weblog category. Back in the day (hehe) when I was a better blogger than I am now, I begged to be nominated for the best new blog award, and I begged to be voted for - way back in 2007. Who won that category that year? Interestingly enough it was the notorious Dr. Flea.
Anyway, I normally don't do endorsements. I mean, not that anything I say would influence anyone to vote one way or the other. I did want to point out one blog in the New Medblog category called StorytellERdoc.
I have to tell you, if you haven't checked out this blog - you have to. It's a great read. And, for what it's worth, I encourage you to vote for this blog in this category. Best of luck to all the nominated blogs across all the categories this year. And, please show some love and cast your vote to whomever you think is the best in each of the categories...
Quit Smoking & Survive Lung Cancer
Yes, you read that title right. Intuitively, it makes sense. Quit smoking and you can decrease your chance of lung cancer. But, now, there is data out there that patients with early lung cancer - who quit smoking - not only increase their rate of survival - they can double their chances of survival. The article talking about they study is from the Associated Press entitled, "Smokers With Cancer Could Quit And Double Survival."
People with lung cancer who continued smoking had a 29 to 33 percent chance of surviving five years. But those who kicked the habit had a 63 to 70 percent chance of being alive after five years. The research was published Friday in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal. Lung cancer is the top cancer worldwide, and the prognosis is usually poor. Only about 7 percent of patients make it to five years, though about 20 percent of patients are diagnosed early enough to be treated.I once thought (and a lot of patients thought) that when you are diagnosed with lung cancer - it doesn't matter if you quit smoking or not. I fully admit that I have never smoked, ever. I don't personally know how difficult it is to quit. But, I have a lot of patients, who I talk with every day, and, they tell me the struggles that they go through when they try to quit again, and again, and again. At least I can tell them that even if you are diagnosed with early lung cancer, there is data out there saying that it is still not too late to quit smoking...."The message is you should never give up on giving up (smoking)," said Amanda Parsons, of the U.K. Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at the University of Birmingham, who led the study. "Even at the stage where you have been diagnosed with early stage lung cancer ... if you give up smoking, your body can still partially recover and your risk is reduced," she said.
Warning: Sitting Can Kill You
You think I'm kidding about this, dont you? Well I'm not (hehe). There was a study just published this week which says exactly this. I got the story from the Associated Press in their article entitied, "Experts: Sitting Too Much Could Be Deadly."
Research is preliminary, but several studies suggest people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die. In an editorial published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences suggested that authorities rethink how they define physical activity to highlight the dangers of sitting.
"After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down. Even for people who exercise, spending long stretches of time sitting at a desk is still harmful.So, right after reading this blog post (and telling your friends about it - hehe), get up people and move around. Exercise those muscles! Maybe that great REM song (see below) was right - "Stand in the place where you live...."
Tragedy
The death of a young person is always a tragedy. Recently in this little town, there was the death of a young person in her/his 20s of a chronic medical condition. It really doesn't matter what the cause is. But, for the sake of this story that was the cause.
One of the great things about primary care is at the same time one of the most painful things about primary care - namely the relationships that docs like me experience. I know I haven't done a good job of "disguising" things or "de-identifying" things from a personal standpoint. You could probably infer from my writing that this person was connected in some way with the office.
Sometimes there are incidents in life which really make you think of what is important in life. It's not really what's going in in other parts of the country, or other parts of the world. What matters is what is happening right here - things that will definitely not make the evening news, yet will impact me in ways that I don't even know about yet.
Life in a small town as a primary care doc gives me experiences - both good and bad - I would not get anywhere else in the world. Where am I going with this rambling post that doesn't make sense? Who knows? Maybe for the first time in a long time I'm really thinking of my mortality? Maybe I'm angry that, yes, sometimes bad things happen to the nicest people. Maybe it just comes down to asking myself - What is really important to me in my life right now? Hmmmmm.....
California to Regulate Doctor Wait Times
Ok, here's an idea, have government mandate how long it takes for you to see a doctor. Don't believe it? Well, California, in their infinite wisdom, is doing just that. I read this story and it just made my skin crawl. It is from The Los Angeles Times and it is entitled, "California Limits HMO Wait Times."
The regulations by the California Department of Managed Health Care, in the works for much of the last decade, will require that patients be treated by HMO doctors within 10 business days of requesting an appointment, and by specialists within 15. Patients seeking urgent care that does not require prior authorization must be seen within 48 hours.Now, the only people who think this is a good idea are politicians. I can just hear the meetings in the back rooms at the state house - "Well really stick it to those doctors with this one." Here's the simple question - Why does it take so long to see the doctor? The answer is simple - Government and Red Tape. The government created most of this mess - really.Telephone calls to doctors' offices will have to be returned within 30 minutes, and physicians or other health professionals will have to be available 24 hours a day. California says it is the first state to set time standards for HMOs, which serve nearly 21 million of its residents.
Now, I don't practice in California, but I know where I live, there is form after form after form to be completed associated with patient care. Much of it is trying to keep with government regulations from the state capitol and from Washington. Plus, if anyone utters the words "Pre-Authorization" - they know how much time this takes from an office staff point of view. This useless time on the phone or on a computer could be better spent - Uh, taking care of patients.
So, here is a little tip to my friends at state legislative houses across the country, and in Washington. The best way to improve wait times and overall patient care, is not to increase government regulation, but to DE-REGULATE government control over health care. Not to mention, with this additional layer of government oversight, who is going to pay for this additional oversight with a bankrupt California budget? Did anyone ask that question? Probably not....
Social Media Suicide?
Ok, I admit that I got the following article after logging into twitter. This is from Time.com and the title is "How to Disappear from Facebook and Twitter." This kind of goes along with my previous post. But, then again, it does not. The article makes reference to a "suicide machine" which, in essence, scrubs your online identity from social media networks.
Since its Dec. 19 launch, Suicide Machine has assisted more than 1,000 virtual deaths, severing more than 80,500 friendships on Facebook and removing some 276,000 tweets from Twitter.Now, don't worry. I'm not going anywhere (I think). I just thought it was kind of funny that I was talking about (trying) to take a little break from facebook and twitter, and then, this article comes along. Long Live Social Media!Once you hand over your log-in details and click Commit, the program will methodically delete your info — Twitter tweets, MySpace contacts, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections — much like users could do manually. What remains is a brittle cyberskeleton: a profile with no data.
Experiment
So, for the last three days, I've been doing this silly experiment with myself (no not anything like that people - hehe). I have tried to unplug from twitter and facebook for a few days. Well, I have failed in one aspect in that I have been continuing to log into FB and twitter. And, I have commented on FB.
However, I have not placed an update or tweet for the past few days. And, let me tell you, it has been very difficult NOT to do that. I had been kind of weird, though, in that I have found myself getting back to this blog to write thoughts down - and it's been a good thing. (BTW, thanks for all the feedback as I have tried to get back into blogging).
I'm continuing to hold true and not do my live internet radio show for these two weeks. And, I'm doing ok (for now) in not posting any updates. It's silly, but getting out of one mind set, has shifted be into another mindset as far as "What am I going to blog about today?" The experiment continues.....
Students
"Dr. A, your student is here," the front desk squawks through the intercom. "Sheesh," I say to myself as I look at my full schedule of patients. Now, don't get me wrong. I really enjoy teaching. Something I do know is that I could not do teaching full time. I thought about possibly joining a residency program or exploring the possibility of teaching full time at the med school. But, at this point in my career, patient care is still my passion.
What docs never say (in public) but always think is that students definitely slow down the productivity and efficiency of office hours. I mean, teaching does take a long time - at least being a good teacher or student "mentor." But, we all know that at one point in our medical career, we were that student who didn't know that much and were afraid to ask a "dumb" question.
My patients and my office staff are great in that they take things in stride. When I tell the same story for the 20th time to a new student in the office, they understand. I mean, hey, primary care is as much about the patient's story as it is about their medical conditions.
I don't think I influenced the student in choosing primary care as a career (not sure if that is even possible these days). But, at least I hope that I conveyed to this student that despite all the roadblocks in the way of doing my job (state/federal regulations, insurance companies, fear of frivolous lawsuits), I still love what I do (really) and I would choose this career path again....
Update: Greetings to those of you who clicked over from Better Health. If you enjoyed this post, I encourage you to check out other posts over here. Thanks for stopping by!
Struggling
It's been months since I have written any kind of significant blog post. I'm not really sure why. I could use the excuse that work is getting in the way, or life is getting in the way. But, I know that those are just poor excuses. I also know that if you don't write anything, no one reads the blog. I have seen my readership slowly dwindle over the past few months. Frankly speaking, I'm embarrassed to call my self a "blogger" these days.
The only way to get back writing - is to just write. So, that is what this post is about. What I hope to do is to try to find my blogging voice again. I have put so many road blocks in front of me and I have made so many excuses. It's time for me to stop making excuses and just writing something again. The funny thing is that I used to enjoy writing. It used to be a unique way for me to express myself.
So, I hope this post is a way for me to start over. A way for me to restart and jump start this blog again. I know where I want to go with this blog, and the direction that I want to take this. But, the only way to get there is to just start writing again. Thanks for your patience as I try to get back to where I was before on the blogging front....