jenuesse health

I had intended no more blog posts for this year, but then Amanda died, and she merits recognition. Amanda Turner Russell, a labor and delivery nurse at my former hospital, a shining light in so many ways, was declared brain dead of head trauma and spinal chord injury caused by a motorist while she was engaged in one of her passions, training for the next charity run in the Boston Marathon. A relative on Facebook reported: In typical Amanda fashion her last wish was to help others. Tomorrow lots of people will be getting another chance at life and a little piece of Amanda will live on. All who knew Amanda were struck by her good nature and generosity.  She inspired her colleagues to take on new challenges, to develop personally and professionally.  She was a loyal friend. Working in the most optimistic part of our hospital, she saw and delivered joy.  She presented it--almost daily--to the rest of us in the form of a sunrise photograph (that she would label #bidmcsunr...

One last post before the New Year's blogging break: It doesn't take long after arriving in Australia for an American to be asked, "What on earth is the matter with your country, when it comes to guns?" These folks are great admirers of the US and close observers of our debate on the issue.  They even know about the Second Amendment to our Constitution and are quick to observe that the Founding Fathers probably had muskets in mind and not projectile weaponry capable of shooting down helicopters. Speaking of the latter, take a look at this humorous column on this serious subject, " Australia enjoys another peaceful day under oppressive gun control regime. " The lede: Due to the nation’s controversial and oppressive gun restrictions, no one has died as a result of a mass-shooting on Australian soil today, for the  7158th d ay in a row.     Local cinema attendant, Christina Upton can’t believe it has been a whole 19 years and 7 months since a heavily armed wh...

Check out this fascinating interview between Eric Topol and Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who made the connection between football and brain damage in the Mike Webster case.  This is the story that forms the basis for the new movie Concussion .  It's worth watching the interview before you see the movie. (Note:  The combination of poor Skype fidelity and Dr. Omalu's Nigerian accent may make it hard for some to understand the audio.  Just read along with the text as the interview proceeds if you need help.)

Whether here in Australia or anywhere else I've traveled over the last decade to review and assist in the health care world, I've seen a growing desire to engage patients more in the design and delivery of care.  As I noted back in 2013 : [P]atient-driven care does not mean foregoing the expertise, judgement and experience of clinicians.  Nor does it suggest the abdication of their clinical responsibilities. But we must go beyond patient-centered care, in which the doctors and nurses decide what is best for the patient.  Patient-driven care, in contrast, is based on a partnership between the provider and the customer. And, as my friend Danny Sands noted in a comment to that blog post: Healthcare is a collaboration around the health of the patients. Consequently, I think this appreciation and understanding needs to go both ways.  As we know participatory medicine is based upon mutual respect: the clinician respecting the self-knowledge, experience, and wisdom...

Here's a lovely article by David Silbersweig about the importance of liberal arts training for those in the medical profession.  Of course, his argument would apply to any profession, but it has particular relevance in this one, where the tendency to rely on the "hard sciences" is emphasized even in the undergraduate years. Excerpts: [M]y thoughts returned to my sophomore year at Dartmouth, when I went back to my childhood dentist during a school break. In the chit-chat of the checkup, as I lay back in the chair with the suction tube in my mouth, he asked: “What are you majoring in at college?” When I replied that I was majoring in philosophy, he said: “What are you going to do with that?” “Think,” I replied. And what a continuously giving gift philosophy has been. While it seemed impractical to my dentist, it has informed and provided a methodology for everything I have done since. If you can get through a one-sentence paragraph of Kant, holding all of its ideas...

It was with some dismay that I read Modern Healthcare' s article called, " The 30 events that rocked healthcare's world in 2015 ."  I jumped into the piece, confident that I would, indeed, find some developments that have made a difference in the quality and safety of patient care, that would introduce transparency, and that would encourage a greater partnership between clinicians and patients and families. What I found instead was a version of The Nightly Business Report --a series of stories mainly about the corporate and financial interests of pharma, insurance companies, big hospitals, and big government.  These stories have nothing to do with what actually happens on the floors and units of America's hospitals or in the offices of local physician practices.  There is nothing in the stories that is motivational to the doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals who have devoted their lives to taking care of us.  There is nothing in the stories that pr...

I'll be writing from Melbourne, Australia for the next several weeks.  I've been invited to be a " Thinker in Residence " at Deakin University, which has campuses here and in Geelong several miles to the south. Beside participating in university activities, I'll be offering advice to the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority ( VMIA ), which provides liability and other insurance to the various state agencies, including those involved in health care and infrastructure. And also to GMHBA , a non-profit private health insurer based in Geelong. I'm hoping my regular readers--and maybe some new ones--will enjoy some observations from here in Oz.  Given the reach of the Internet, I'll still be watching things back home, but maybe my observations about them will also benefit from the perspective that distance offers. In commemoration of the Christmas holiday and its emphasis on kindness, I want to start with one story from Dr. Kate Cherry, an infectious disease s...