Health 3.0 Blog

"In some cases, to be healthy, wealthy, and wise…we need to make specific efforts to honor our own needs. If we don’t, we run the risk of completely burning ourselves out and suffering the ill effects of depression, stress, and anxiety."

Dr. Steven Seay encourages us to think of selfishness as a key ingredient in promoting better mental health. 

I certainly agree that we have a cultural stigmatism attached to the idea that taking care of oneself before others is somehow unbecoming. Dr. Charles’ post illustrates this point by discussing our the recent fascination with President Obama’s vacation plans. 

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But … having said all that, I am pleased to tell you that there is a blood test which predicts depression with 100% accuracy. It is simple, can be done at home, and costs nothing.

Here’s how it works. Prick your finger (sterile technique, of course). If you see blood, it is 100% guaranteed that at some time in the next five years you will experience a bout of depression.

Philip Hickey responds to a recent post critiquing a blood test that can supposedly diagnose depression. It was refreshing to read Philip’s take on the test and his acknowledgement that depression is a normal part of the human condition - it’s how we deal with it that ultimately matters.

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She tells of the serpent slithering through her spine.

Squeezing her insides and spitting venom towards the thighs.

She tells of mal-lubricated joints and the fecundity of aging.

Jordan Grumet of In My Humble Opinion beautifully describes his interaction with an elderly patient and in the process illuminates the foundation of doctor-patient (and truly human) relationships: communication and a willingness to listen. 

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It’s amazing that it took cancer and a trip to China to realize — and appreciate — my becoming a mom. Often I hear parents whining about the difficulty of parenthood and their lives. While I also find parenthood difficult and life to be less than stellar at times, I don’t whine about my life.

Instead, I revel in it.

Despite a few hiccups in the process, Beth Gainer (Calling the Shots blog) passionately tells the story of adopting her now-three year old daughter from China. 

"We can expect that the 2011 scholars will someday become renowned researchers, department chairs and deans, and health systems leaders, sharing their specialized knowledge about what it takes to ensure older adults receive safe, high-quality care."

Marcus Escobedo of The John A. Hartford Foundation announces the recipients of its 2011 Paul B. Beeson Scholars. These doctors lead the way in terms of ensuring our health care system continuously improves the quality of care delivered to an aging population. 

Diabetes Art Day is September 1st and Diabetes Mine has all the relevant information on how to participate in this week’s post. 

I found this quote particularly inspiring: “With creative visual expression, we experience a greater depth of experience of ourselves and each other, and this strengthens our connections. Art is also a valuable means of communicating the experience of living with diabetes to people outside the diabetes community”

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But is this “rush to adopt” really a good thing?

The benefits of this brave new world are touted as increased efficiency and better patient outcomes, but I’ve seen scant evidence of either - at least no direct links controlled for other factors. Which is not to say that such do not exist, but if that’s truly the case, show me the data.

Henry Stern of the Insure Blog questions the overall effectiveness of electronic health-records and suggests that these huge repositories of personal data may not be as secure as their designers would have us believe. 

"Besides being a zebra, this disease won the race because it has, of late, appeared in the popular media and has made quite the splash (*hint). Now, instead of blabbering on like a zombie (*hint), I will let you go ahead, and download that file and go through the scenario."

Pranab Chatterjee of Scepticemia presents MediQuiz #4, which is an exercise in interactive problem solving he has co-designed with Parijat Sen. 

"What triggered my caution flag the most, was the topic: autism. I immediately linked this to the anti-vaccination quackery movement, that’s trying to give skeptic bloggers a hard time and fights a personal, not a scientific battle."

@Laikas conducts a little investigative digging into the roots of a particularly suspicious spam email message… (via Laika’s MedLibLog)

"We chose cautious and scientific language for our conclusions, because, especially with rare events, it is not possible to prove a negative (i.e., the vaccine did not and cannot cause the event). We cannot say that in a certain person at a certain time, some event cannot happen; there is much about biology that is not known” - From a recent Institute of Medicine literature review."

The ACP Internist summarizes a recent review from the Institute of Medicine that concluded vaccines tend to be overwhelmingly safe - especially considering the public health benefit they provide.

"Declines in median times were greatest among groups that had the highest median times to begin with, those more than 75 years old, (median decline, 38 minutes), women (35 minutes), and blacks (42 minutes)."

The ACP Hospitalist highlights data sets in recent reports that suggest heart attack patients now receive treatment more quickly than just five years ago. An important revelation is the reduction in disparities among certain populations.

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The current curriculum undermines the authority of the education system by revealing to tech-savvy children how antediluvian it is.

But, more importantly, the curriculum is disabling rather than enabling for most kids, because it is preparing them for a technological world that is vanishing before their eyes. Training children to use Microsoft Office is the contemporary equivalent of the touch-typing courses that secretarial colleges used to run for girls in the 1940s and 1950s – useful for a limited role in the workplace, perhaps, but not much good for life in the modern world.

In The Guardian, John Naughton makes a passionate case for the importance of hands-on tinkering in children’s education. For a related read, see the compelling A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. (via curiositycounts)

ourownsystem:

SCIENCE! via @mtommasi

(Source: ourownsystem)

An interesting question we’ve struggled with here at the Washington Health Foundation. 

"Luck is the residue of design."

Source: New York Times (Arthur Daley, November 17, 1965)

Branch Rickey Quotes