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• Pulse: Voices From the Heart of Medicine - The First Year, ed. Paul Gross and Diane Guernsey (excellent essays, poems and short narratives from the hearts and in the voices of patients and their health care providers, from the online magazine Pulse) Article linking autism to vaccination was fraudulent. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief, Jane Smith, deputy editor, and Harvey Marcovitch, associate editor, British Medical Journal 5 Jan 2011. A 1998 Lancet paper, chiefly by Andrew Wakefield, implied a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and a “new syndrome” of autism and bowel disease. Clear evidence of falsification of data in that article should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare, write BMJ's top editors. In a seven-part series, journalist Brian Deer shows the extent of Wakefield's fraud and how it was perpetrated: In a seven-part series, journalist Brian Deer shows the extent of Wakefield's fraud and how it was perpetrated: How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed.
Here's video of discussion on the Dylan Ratigan Show (MSNBC)of scientific fraud.
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Writers and Editors (site rich in resources for both)
E-mail Pat(pat at patmcnees dot com)
An Imaginary Farmer (my nephew Mike's interesting blog about moving his wife and six children to a farm in Utah, while working in IT--foodies, check it out!)
View from the Grove (down-to-earth blog of home manager Wendy, my niece in Utah)
My Chosen People, by Abigail Rasminsky (my goddaughter's modern story about an old holiday)
Montana Horses blogRenee Daniels-Mantle, my cousin's daughter, writing about life among horses)
Wingsuit Base Jumping (brief video of something to consider for your next adventure)
National Do Not Call RegistryRegistering NOT to receive telemarketing calls (also on your cell phone)
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Article linking autism to vaccination was fraudulent. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief, Jane Smith, deputy editor, and Harvey Marcovitch, associate editor, British Medical Journal 5 Jan 2011. A 1998 Lancet paper, chiefly by Andrew Wakefield, implied a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and a “new syndrome” of autism and bowel disease. Clear evidence of falsification of data in that article should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare, write BMJ's top editors. In a seven-part series, journalist Brian Deer shows the extent of Wakefield's fraud and how it was perpetrated: How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed
The NNT. The Number Needed to Treat -- a tool to communicate benefit and harm that both patients and doctors can understand (traditionally, the number required to prevent one death). See also the Lancet article, Numbers needed to treat (needlessly?) by Peter Bogaty and James Brophy, suggesting that the NNT obscures the reality that many patients are treated without benefit. Figures on such questions as whether taking an aspirin prevents a heart attack (or does harm), whether beta blockers prevent myocardial infarction (or do harm), is the Mediterranean diet helpful after heart attack, do statin drugs given for five years (with or without known heart disease)help or harm health, in what ways? and so on.
New York Times:
• NY Times Health Navigator (Rich Meislin's selective guide to health and medical sites)
• NY Times Health Guide (and A-to-Z guide, with more than 3,000 topics described, illustrated, and investigated)
NIH (National Institutes of Health):
• Frequently asked questions
• Health Information (by age group, by gender, by condition/disease, by body system, and so on, including info on health and wellness)
• NIH RePORTER (NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting), a searchable database about federally funded biomedical research projects and programs (replaced CRISP). News updates here.
• NIH Senior Health
• NIH Telephone & Services Directory, including links to the various institutes and centers
• Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR)
Pharmed Out, a university-based project that empowers physicians to identify and counter inappropriate pharmaceutical promotion practices and learn more about evidence-based practices. Interesting for consumers, too--take a good look through resources.
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REDUCING PREVENTABLE MEDICAL ERRORS
In 1999 the Institute of Medicine published its report, To Err Is Human:Building a Safer Health System, which presented a strategy by which government, health care providers, industry, and consumers could reduce preventable medical errors. This report led to several others, which an educated consumer could use as a checklist on how not to be the victim of hospital-caused medical problems (above all, make sure whoever does a procedure on you washes their hands first).
In February 2000, the Quality Interagency Coordination Task Force (QuIC) issued a report, Doing What Counts for Patient Safety: Federal Action to Reduce Medical Errors and Their Impact, listing more than 100 activities needed to:
1. Create a national focus on reducing errors.
2. Develop a knowledge base for learning about errors' causes and effective error prevention.
3. Ensure accountability for safe health care delivery.
4. Guarantee that patient safety practices are implemented.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) announced the 100k lives Campaign, through which healthcare organizations, by implementing one or more of six specific evidence-based practices, could join a campaign to potentially prevent 100,000 avoidable deaths. Six interventional measures were identified as crucial to improving patient safety:
* Deploying rapid response teams at the first sign of patient decline.
* Delivering reliable, evidence-based care for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) to prevent deaths from heart attack (for example, give patient an aspirin).
* Preventing adverse drug events (ADE) by implementing medication reconciliation.
* Preventing central line infections by implementing a series of scientifically grounded interdependent interventions.
* Preventing surgical site infections by reliably delivering appropriate antibiotics and other specific steps.
* Preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia by implementing a series of scientifically grounded interdependent interventions.
Following are links to websites and reports that deal with improving patient safety and hospital staff performance.
The Checklist
"Intensive care succeeds only when we hold the odds of doing harm low enough for the odds of doing good to prevail. This is hard. There are dangers simply in lying unconscious in bed for a few days. Muscles atrophy. Bones lose mass. Pressure ulcers form. Veins begin to clot off. You have to stretch and exercise patients’ flaccid limbs daily to avoid contractures, give subcutaneous injections of blood thinners at least twice a day, turn patients in bed every few hours, bathe them and change their sheets without knocking out a tube or a line, brush their teeth twice a day to avoid pneumonia from bacterial buildup in their mouths. Add a ventilator, dialysis, and open wounds to care for, and the difficulties only accumulate....
But consider: there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of things doctors do that are at least as dangerous and prone to human failure as putting central lines into I.C.U. patients. It’s true of cardiac care, stroke treatment, H.I.V. treatment, and surgery of all kinds. It’s also true of diagnosis, whether one is trying to identify cancer or infection or a heart attack. All have steps that are worth putting on a checklist and testing in routine care. The question — still unanswered — is whether medical culture will embrace the opportunity."
~ Atul Gawande, "The Checklist," in The New Yorker
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A READING LIST OF BOOKS ON MEDICINE, HEALTH CARE, AND CAREGIVING -- FOR PATIENTS AND CAREGIVERS
An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family edited by Nell Casey. Wonderful writing, excellent insights into the complexities both of caring and of being cared for, during an illness.
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison (about manic depression).
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande
Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles by Keith Black
Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Emergency!: True Stories From The Nation's ERs by Mark Brown
Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years, Michael J. Collins memoir of his grueling surgical residency at the Mayo Clinic
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman
How We Die by Sherwin Nuland (excellent descriptions of exactly how the various body systems fail, when they fail -- a primer even for healthy readers)
Illness as Metaphor: AIDS and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag
Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar
In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine by John Stone
Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death in the ER by Pamela Grim
Life Disrupted: Getting Real About Chronic Illness in Your Twenties and Thirties, by Laurie Edwards
Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work) by Suzanne Gordon, author of Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes, And Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses And Patient Care.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, by Oliver Sachs
The Measure of Our Days: New Beginnings at Life's End by Jerome Groopman
Medical Detectives, by Berton Roueche
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story , Abraham Verghese's memoir of being a doctor during the early years of AIDS.
On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency by Emily R. Transue
Pulse: Voices From the Heart of Medicine - The First Year, ed. Paul Gross and Diane Guernsey (excellent essays, poems and short narratives from the hearts and in the voices of patients and their health care providers, from the online magazine Pulse)
Second Opinions: Stories of Intuition and Choice in the Changing World of Medicine by Jerome Groopman
Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives , edited by Lee Gutkind (essays about communication failures that lead to potentially lethal medical error)
Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, ed. Nell Casey
When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery by Frank Vertosick Jr.
FOR YOUR MEDICAL REFERENCE SHELF
Although you can learn a lot online through Medline Plus and WebHealth.com (links above), you may want to have a good general reference book at home, too. Here are a few possibilities:
The Body Clock Guide to Better Health by Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lamberg
The Cornell Illustrated Medical Encyclopedia: The Definitive Medical Home Reference Guide (Weill Cornell Health Series) by Antonio Gotto
The Johns Hopkins Complete Home Guide to Symptoms & Remedies by Editors of The Johns Hopkins Medical Letter Health After 50
The Johns Hopkins Consumer Guide to Medical Tests: What You Can Expect, How You Should Prepare, What Your Results Mean by Simeon Margolis
Know Your Body: The Atlas of Anatomy by Emmet B. Keefe
Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, 3rd edition, by the Mayo Clinic
Mosby's Manual of Diagnostic and Laboratory Tests, by Kathleen Pagana and Timothy Pagana (helpful in interpreting lab test results)
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IF YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT, LOOK AT THESE, TOO:
The New American Plate Cookbook, a good-for-you cookbook filled with delicious recipes from the American Institute for Cancer Research
The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger (tasty and healthy versions of popular "crave" dishes) and her So Easy: Luscious, Healthy Recipes for Every Meal of the Week
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser (read this and then start cooking from The New American Plate)
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan (and check out his practical Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (illus. by Maira Kalman)
Bottom line: Shop the periphery of the supermarket. All the natural foods are there. The center of the market is full of the processed foods that are stripped of some nutrients and loaded with garbage that increases profits for stores and manufacturers while burdening you with extra calories and weight.
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• Curb Those Cravings (blog)
• For Three Years, Every Bite Organic (Tara Parker-Pope, NYT, reports what Dr. Alan Greene learned from his three-year experiment)
• The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating (Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times 6-30-08)
• Hypertension: Tips for Eating Out in Various Cuisines (Southwestern Medical Center)
• The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food without Gluten and Lactose by Barbara Kafak
• Is there a link between chocolate and depression? Joanne Silberner, NPR, 4-26-10, on the connection between depression and chocolate. Chocolate-lovers, check out Joanne's favorite website, Cnocolate and Zucchini (especially the forums).
• Meatless Monday (recipes and information to help prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer)
• Michael Pollan Offers 64 Ways to Eat Food (Tara Parker-Pope, NYTimes, 1-8-2010)
• Please, don't pass the salt! (blog)
• Recipes for Health (Martha Rose Shulman's articles, recipes, NY Times)
• Reduce Your Cancer Risk (recipes from the AICR Test Kitchen, which also produced a fabulous cookbook: The New American Plate Cookbook
• Snake Oil? Scientific evidence for popular health supplements (great graph showing how much scientific evidence there is to support various supplements)
• Stay Young at Heart (Cooking the Heart-Healthy way, good recipes from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute))
• Vegan Before Dinnertime (Mark Bittman on carnivores eating more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods)
• A Year of Produce (Jane Pellicciotto)
COOKING FOR FAMILY MEMBERS WITH ALLERGIES:
• The Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book: Great Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Treats for the Whole Family by Kelly Rudnick
• Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook by Cybele Pascal
• The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen: Recipes for Noodles, Dumplings, Sauces, and More by Laura Russell
• by Annalise G. Roberts
• Gluten-Free Living, a magazine aimed at people with the auto-immune disorder celiac disease
• Gluten-Free on a Shoestring: 125 Easy Recipes for Eating Well on the Cheap by Nicole Hunn
• The Gluten-Free Vegan: 150 Delicious Gluten-Free, Animal-Free Recipes by Susan O'Brien
• The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen: Delicious and Nutritious Wheat-Free, Gluten-Free Dishes by Donna Klein
• The 100 Best Gluten-Free Recipes for Your Vegan Kitchen: Delicious Smoothies, Soups, Salads, Entrees, and Desserts by Kelley E. Keough
• Flying Apron's Gluten-Free and Vegan Baking Book by Jennifer Katzinger
and do read
• Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life by Sandra Beasley
For Three Years, Every Bite Organic
(an excerpt)
"Dr. Greene said he was inspired to go all-organic after talking to a dairy farmer who noted that livestock got sick less after a switch to organic practices. He wondered if becoming 100 percent organic might improve his own health.
"Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients....
"In corporate cafeterias and convenience stores, he looked for stickers that began with the number 9 to signify organic; stickers on conventionally grown produce begin with 4."
~ Tara Parker-Pope, For Three Years, Every Bite Organic , Well column, The New York Times 12-1-08
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Understanding the debate on health care reform and health policy
• Whitehouse.gov The eight basic consumer protections the White House wants health care reform to cover: (1) No discrimination for pre-existing conditions, (2) No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays, (3)No cost-sharing for preventive care, (4) No dropping of coverage if you become seriously ill, (5) No gender discrimination, (6) No annual or lifetime caps on coverage, (7) Extended coverage for young adults, (8) Guaranteed insurance renewal so long as premiums are paid. Learn more about these consumer protections at http://www.whitehouse.gov/
• Excluded Voices. Trudy Lieberman's penetrating series of interviews on health care reform, in Columbia Journalism Review. Start with her interview with Wendell Potter, who "didn’t want to be part of another health insurance industry effort to shape reform that would benefit the industry at the expense of the public." You can also listen to Bill Moyers interview Potter or read the transcript and Potter's testimony before Congress.
• C-Span's Health Care Hub is a good place to find various town hall discussions, hearings, wonderful links. C-Span, you're wonderful!
• The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care (Atul Gawande, The New Yorker, 6-1-09)
• A consumer guide to handling disputes with your employer or private health plan, 2005 update, Kaiser Family Foundation
• C-Span's Health Care Hub is a good place to find various town hall discussions, hearings, wonderful links. C-Span, you're wonderful!
• DrSteveB's blogroll (helpful Daily Kos blogger--and check his blogroll for other resources)
• Get Health Care (HRSA links to free and inexpensive care) (previously Find Help)
• Guaranteed Health Care (National Nurses Organizing Committee, California Nurses Association)
• Health Affairs (excellent issues on health care reform, in this important policy journal about health care)
• Health Reform Source *Kaiser Family Foundation (many excellent resources, including The States (a state-by-state view of health care reform implementation and news--click on a state for state-specific information)
• HELP Is on the Way (Paul Krugman on why universal health coverage is affordable)
Health Insurance Consumer Information (news you can use), with blogs that follow the health care debate and discuss news of health insurance coverage around the country, and a Consumer Guide for Getting and Keeping Health Insurance for each state and the District of Columbia. The American Cancer Society and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other organizations provide support for this research by The Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. Worth checking out.
• Health Insurance Woes: My $22,000 Bill for Having a Baby (And I had coverage for maternity care! Sarah Wildman, DoubleX, 8-3-09). "Our insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, sold us exactly the type of flawed policy—riddled with holes and exceptions—that the health care reform bills in Congress should try to do away with. The “maternity” coverage we purchased didn’t cover my labor, delivery, or hospital stay. It was a sham."..."The individual insurance market is like that old joke about the food being terrible and the portions too small; it’s expensive, shoddy, and deeply unsatisfying. Those of us who buy into it are not protected by the federal and state laws that govern employer-based health care. In fact, there’s no one looking out for us at all."
• N.C. Program A Model For Health Overhaul? (Rose Hoban, North Carolina Public Radio, Morning Edition, NPR, 10-15-09). The state Medicaid program in North Carolina is helping people stay healthier--and saving the state money. Medicaid (not the clinics) pays nurses and social workers to do case management. They're placed in clinics and sites that see lots of patients and their priorities are those of the state, not the clinic managers (who might be interested in churning to create revenue). See also this policy profile of Community Care of North Carolina (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, 2009). CCNC's website has links to more stories and information.
• Physicians for a National Health Program (supports single-payer national health insurance)
• Reach of Subsidies Is Critical Issue for Health Plan (Robert Pear, NY Times, 7-26-09—on another important issue: where the money comes from to cover the costs of the formerly uninsured)
• Science Blogs (Health)
• SurveyUSA News Poll on Health Care Data (showing public opinion on various aspects of the health care debate, by gender, race, party affiliation, ideology, level of college education, income,region, and age)
• Ten Titles: Understanding the Affordable Care Act (John McDonough)
• Why markets can’t cure healthcare by Paul Krugman (The Conscience of a Liberal, NY Times, 7-25-09).
You can watch Michael Moore's documentary, Sicko online. You can hear on Bill Moyers' interview with Wendell Potter how the insurance industry planned to defuse reactions to Moore's documentary. As Potter states: "The industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that if you even consider that, you're heading down on the slippery slope towards socialism. So they have used scare tactics for years and years and years, to keep that from happening. If there were a broader program like our Medicare program, it could potentially reduce the profits of these big companies. So that is their biggest concern." Potter himself says of the documentary, "I thought that he hit the nail on the head with his movie. But the industry, from the moment that the industry learned that Michael Moore was taking on the health care industry, it was really concerned."
Godwin's Law: ""As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches"
~ Mike Godwin, creator of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies, fearing glib use of the term will dilute the meaning of "Never Again"
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Writing or telling life stories
A loving testament, or legacy letter, sharing your life experiences and lessons with the next generation
Read aloud at a memorial service decades later
Everyone has a story to tell. What's keeping you from telling yours? Become a storykeeper or personal historian or find one.
Learn to write articles, reports, ethical wills, or life stories (memoirs and beyond).
Mom — hardworking, sassy, and full of surprises
Mutual support and discussion
Social history through the life of an ordinary Midwestern businessman. Medical mysteries, patient stories, and practical links
John Travolta played the boy in the movie. The real story ended far differently.
Thin little Marian had a cholesterol problem most people have never heard of.
You've probably never heard of this national research hospital and clinic. But someone you know may be able to benefit from it directly and all of us do, indirectly.
Prepare for skill-based slips and rule- and knowledge-based errors Dancing, food, good books, and other diversions
Favorites of several book groups
What is the single lunch-bag item most hated by all children?
What heightens the caviar experience is the price of those little gray or black sturgeon eggs.
Links to dancing venues and calendars for the Washington, D.C. area.
Did she fall in love with the man or the waltz?
Also related: jive, hustle, hand-dancing.
All the dancing your feet can take
Choosing a school of dance
The big ones, with dirty stems
“A rich, varied, and highly rewarding collection,” says Joyce Carol Oates Dying, mourning, and other inevitable events
“This remarkable collection, coming from personal experience and wide reading, will help many find the potential of growth through loss.” —Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the hospice movement
For those dying, for caregivers, and for the bereaved Girls and science
Attention: parents, teachers.
Best practices for teaching science--to strengthen the science workforce.
Some links and a selection
File under "things that worked." Practical matters
Identify children's learning styles and improve their ability to learn.
Six weeks to hassle-free homework.
Why parents should be concerned.
Public speaking is a craft, not an art. It can be learned.
Can you wash it if it says "dry clean"?
Don't focus on the fabric. Organizational histories
A frank history of the Young Presidents’ Organization.
The little lift truck that could — a story of brilliant marketing in America's heartland. Online Shopping
Best places to shop online
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