Health Care Reform: The Arrogance of the Healthy
Time for a wee rant over at HealthCentral: “Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, believes putting a dollar value on human lives is the key to health care reform. Placing a value on human life will enable us to ration health care to get the “most bang for your buck” by denying…
Customer Care
A while back, I read an article – somewhere on HealthCentral? I forget – about doctors in the US requiring their patients to sign an agreement not to rate them on e.g., RateMD before they would treat them and it’s been rattling around in my mind for a couple of months. Aside from the blackmail…
Sex and the City: A Rant
Like many other women, I’ve been a rabid Sex and the City fan. Years ago, it was shown here in Canada on one of the specialty channels Friday night and rerun Saturday night and I would often watch both. I have most of the series on DVD (except for the two-part 6th season and I’m…
A Beginners Guide to RA: Alternative Medicine
This week’s HealthCentral post is about alternative medicine: “Have you ever tried acupuncture? Massage therapy? Do you take supplements? Chances are you’re not relying exclusively on allopathic – i.e., Western-based – medicine, but are supplementing the care and prescriptions you receive from the medical system with other techniques and treatments. And if you aren’t, you’ve…
Like Glass
Hold out your hand. Now tighten the muscles in your forearm – not a lot, just enough to be aware that it’s tensed. Hold it. Permanently. This is fibromyalgia pain. Well, one of them anyway. The bloody thing is forever surprising me with new and “interesting” qualities of pain it can invent. You don’t notice…
Things That Make You Go ‘Huh?’
The week’s only half over and already, I’ve encountered three things that made my wee brain feel like I’d sprained it. Thing the first. I was watching a commercial the other day and it’s enough of rare occasion that it warrants mentioning, as I usually tape – yes, I still use a VCR – programs…
Suspicion and Control
An FDA panel recently recommended lowering the maximum recommended daily dose of acetaminophen, a measure intended to decrease the number of accidental overdose related liver failure. They also recommended other things, among them to withdraw acetaminophen combination narcotics like Vicodin and Percocet from the market, as one study indicated that most such overdoses involved these…
Habits, Tics and Verbal Twitches
People have habits, both in behaviour and in speech (yes, more about words today). Adolescents – and an unfortunate amount of young adults – say like way more often than necessary. Overhearing conversations on the street or in foodcourts where a third of the words is like can drive a person to distraction and dangerously…
Forgiveness
This week’s HealthCentral post ponders philosophically: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you – Lewis B. Smedes I used to think of myself as a brain in a jar, my body some other being that I had nothing to do with. Who I was could be found in…
Machinations
A long time ago – back when the hills were mountains – I was in graduate school, studying for my Masters in social work. There were classes in theory, classes about research methodology, classes to teach us community development, others that taught counseling skills and one of the common themes were client empowerment, the contract…
Not That I’m Biased
I’ve been thinking about bias. It all started with this article by David Gorski about the Oprah-fication of medicine (link fixed). Well, it started with the Newsweek article, followed by the other one and given that I’ve had loads of time to sit around and think while I attempted to heal this latest maiming of…
A Beginners Guide to RA: How to Be a Self Advocate
The latest Beginner’s Guide to RA is up at HealthCentral: “In communities of people who have chronic illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, you often hear advice about becoming a good advocate for yourself — how it is an essential part of navigating the health care system and contributes to living well with chronic health issues. Self…