Get Off My Case

In my inbox this morning, via ASCO‘s “Cancer in the News” feed: The UK’s Telegraph (5/6, Beckford) reported that as “many as 20,000 British women could avoid developing” breast cancer “each year, if they took more exercise, drank less and ate better.” Latest figures “suggest that 47,600 women developed breast cancer in 2008,” and the […]

Posted in Breast Cancer, Essential Lessons, Fitness, Life, Life as a Patient, Medical News, Oncology (cancer), Pseudoscience, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , 20 Comments on Get Off My Case

Getting the Blood Tests Right at the Phlebotomy Center

Last week I had some blood tests taken before a doctor’s appointment. I went to a commercial lab facility, one of several dozen centers for collecting specimens have opened up in otherwise-unrented Manhattan office spaces lately. I have to say I really like getting my blood work done at this place, if and when I […]

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The Trouble With Ginger

A short post for Friday: The Times published a short piece on ginger this Tuesday, on whether or not it relieves morning sickness. The conclusion is that it’s less effective for nausea in pregnancy than in seasickness and chemotherapy treatment. When I was getting chemo, I received a gift of ginger tea. It didn’t help […]

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Dr. Greenfield is Human

A few days ago I read that Dr. Lazar Greenfield, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, resigned as the president-elect of the American College of Surgeons over flak for authoring a Valentine’s Day-pegged, tacky, tasteless and sexist piece in Surgery News. The February issue is mysteriously absent in the pdf-ied archives. According to the […]

Posted in Hematology (blood), Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Medical NewsTagged , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Dr. Greenfield is Human

May I Call You ‘Doctor’?

Last week I considered the relationship between the Prince Albert and his speech therapist in The King’s Speech. One aspect I wanted to explore further is why the future king initially insisted on calling the practitioner “doctor.” In real life, now, patient-doctor relationships can be topsy-turvy. This change comes partly a function of a greater […]

Posted in Communication, Empowered Patient, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Movies, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , , 2 Comments on May I Call You ‘Doctor’?

A Note on Positive Thinking

Today I came upon a Jan 24 op-ed, A Fighting Spirit Won’t Change Your Life by Richard Sloan, PhD, of Columbia University’s Psychiatry Department. Somehow I’d missed this worthwhile piece on the sometimes-trendy notion of mind-over-matter in healing and medicine. Sloan opens with aftermath of the Tucson shootings: …Representative Giffords’s husband describes her as a […]

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Why It’s a Good Idea to Get a Second Opinion, and Maybe a Third, But Rarely a Fourth

A few years ago I started writing a book on what it was like to be a cancer patient and an oncologist. This morning I came upon this section on second opinions: Is it OK to get a second opinion? Definitely. And there’s no need to be secretive about it, or to worry about hurting […]

Posted in cancer treatment, Communication, Empowered Patient, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Oncology (cancer), Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , 1 Comment on Why It’s a Good Idea to Get a Second Opinion, and Maybe a Third, But Rarely a Fourth

I Feel Your Pain (not)

A tweet hit me on Sunday evening, from a stranger: @Mibberz I’m saddened by how many ADULTS can’t get their #rheum 2 understand the level of severity of their pain.What hope is there for my daughter? I half-watched an on-line exchange about the issue, and then went about my family’s dinner preparations. The message came […]

Posted in Life, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , 1 Comment on I Feel Your Pain (not)

The Grinch That Almost Stole Christmas

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m not into rants. Complaining is rarely constructive, I know. But I spent the afternoon sorting through a 2-month stack of medical bills and correspondences related to those. Despite the fact that I consistently pay bills on time, we received threatening notices from local hospitals for payments they […]

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A Patient’s Internal Conflict of Interest: to Mention a Symptom, or Not?

Here’s a partial list of why some thoughtful, articulate patients might be reluctant to mention symptoms to their doctors:

1. Respect for the doctor – when the patient feels what he’s experiencing isn’t worth taking up a physician’s time, what I’d call the “time-worthy” problem;

2. Guilt – when the patient feels she shouldn’t complain about anything relatively minor, because she’s lucky to be alive;

3. Worry – when patient’s anxious or afraid the symptoms are a sign of the condition worsening, and so

Posted in Communication, Empowered Patient, Ideas, Life as a Patient, Medical Ethics, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , 2 Comments on A Patient’s Internal Conflict of Interest: to Mention a Symptom, or Not?

Progress at the Orthopedist’s Office

This morning I visited my spine surgeon for a check-up. What’s nice is the feeling I have about his office staff: they’re pleasant, gentle people who seem always eager in their work, and that helps. I got big hugs from his nurse, an office manager and biller. Even the x-ray technician seemed glad to assist […]

Posted in Health IT, Life, Life as a PatientTagged , , , , , 2 Comments on Progress at the Orthopedist’s Office

The Author Chooses Not to Go to the Emergency Room

Yesterday the author of ML wasn’t feeling too well. She had (and has) what’s probably a recurrent bout of diverticulitis, a condition when a little pouch stemming from the colon becomes inflamed and causes pain and fever. This can be serious if infection of the colon’s wall progresses, or catastrophic if the colon ruptures. So […]

Posted in Ideas, Life, Life as a Patient, Patient AutonomyTagged , 2 Comments on The Author Chooses Not to Go to the Emergency Room

The Transportation Safety Authority Screens Travelers Inside and Out

I’ll be staying near my home in Manhattan this week. But if I did have plans to travel by airplane for the holiday, I think I’d be apprehensive about the new screening procedures implemented by the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA).

My concern is not so much with the scanners…Rather, I’m worried about screening errors – false positive and false negative results, and about harms – physical and/or emotional, that patients and people with disability may experience during the screening process.

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Hospital Fashion News from AARP and the Cleveland Clinic

The November AARP Bulletin highlights a promising development in hospital couture: trendsetter Diane von Furstenberg has designed new, unisex gowns ready for wearing in hospitals. The new gowns provide style and full coverage, with options for opening in front or back according to the bulletin. A trial is underway at the Cleveland Clinic.

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Why I Went for My Screening Mammogram

I was afraid to get a mammogram because I didn’t want to learn I had cancer….I feared having a “false positive,” and undergoing multiple tests to evaluate abnormal images that would turn out to be nothing…I didn’t have time for all that…

Posted in Breast Cancer, cancer screening, Essential Lessons, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Oncology (cancer), Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Why I Went for My Screening Mammogram

A Walk, or Race, for the Cure

“You can get discomboobulated in this place,” a NYC police officer told me today.

This morning, some 25,000 or so men, women and children converged on Central Park for the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s 20th annual Race for the Cure. It was my first time witnessing the event:

Posted in Annals of Pink, Breast Cancer, cancer awareness, cancer survival, Life as a Patient, Life in NYCTagged , , , , , , 2 Comments on A Walk, or Race, for the Cure

Another Take On An Ordinary Day

…Live Each Day Like There’s a Lot of Them Left….What she articulated is the idea that maybe the best thing to do after cancer is to live, essentially, as you would do otherwise, except with a bit of added balance:

Posted in cancer survival, Essential Lessons, Life, Life as a Patient, Patient Autonomy, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , 2 Comments on Another Take On An Ordinary Day

Eye Care

…the office has expanded and become so systematized that when I go there I don’t feel like I’m visiting a doctor, the kind of professional who sincerely cares about my health. Instead I feel like a commodity, which I suppose I am.

Posted in health care delivery, Life as a Patient, Patient-Doctor Relationship, Physical ExaminationTagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Eye Care

Living Like It’s Shark Week!

Today is the start of this year’s Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Dialog from NBC’s 30 Rock, Season 1, Episode 4 “Jack the Writer” (2006)*: Tracy Jordan: But I want you to know something… You and me, it’s not gonna be a one-way street. Cos I don’t believe in one-way streets. Not between people, and not […]

Posted in cancer survival, from the author, Life, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Patient Autonomy, TVTagged , , , , , Leave a Comment on Living Like It’s Shark Week!
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