Category Archives: Health care

Want a safer O.R? Shut the !@#& up!

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
13

Every so often, a wee media firestorm erupts over surprising issues. Consider surgeons, for example, who sing in the operating room. The latest eruption happened locally with the dismissal of an official complaint from a Canadian patient offended by his eye surgeon’s vocals in the O.R.

According to a report of the hearing published in The Vancouver Sun, the unnamed patient filed a complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia after the eye surgery in May, 2011. The patient (awake for his entire procedure) could hear everything. He not only objected to his surgeon’s singing during the operation, but also the fact that he was casually chatting with others in the O.R. about, for example, his plans to take home the hospital’s linens “so he could wash his car with them.”   Continue reading →

The breast/uterine cancer study with no women invited

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
19

Dr. Ruth Simkin once wrote, in an editorial entitled Women’s Health: Time for a Redefinition published in The Canadian Medical Association Journal: (1)

“In medicine, the male has been viewed as normative in research, treatment, societal constructs and, until recently, health care provision. Most of us are aware that much of the published medical research has involved male subjects only.”

Perhaps the best-known example of such research – what Dr. Simkin in fact describes as “the height of ludicrousness” – was the 1986 study at New York City’s Rockefeller University on breast and uterine cancer.

Despite the clearly obvious reality of these malignancies in women, all of the subjects in this study were men. Continue reading →

“If you’re clueless and you know it”

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
5

I am clueless about many things. As in the definition: “Lacking understanding or knowledge.” As in the sentence: “I have no clue!” As in the 20+ years I spent living with a research scientist and enduring mind-numbingly torturous dinner conversations on zinc and copper sediment in the Fraser River estuary.

That kind of clueless.

Oh, sure, there are some things about which I do have a clue, as is true with even the most profoundly clueless among us. For instance, with decades of experience working in public relations behind me, I know quite a bit about organizing news conferences, writing speeches, doing media interviews, or whipping up communications plans. And as a Mayo Clinic-trained survivor of a widow maker heart attack, I know a wee bit about cardiology in general, and quite a bit more about my particular obsession: women’s heart disease. As such, I do have a clue about what it’s like to live with a chronic and progressive illness.

So I can’t help but notice that the difference between me and a surprising number of other people out there seems to be that I am exquisitely aware of both what I do have a clue about, and what I have no clue whatsoever about on any given subject. So I usually try to keep my mouth shut as much as possible whenever encountering the latter.

The same cannot be said, alas, of some tech-types working in the digital health field of self-tracking – and here’s why I dare to make that observation.  Continue reading →

Patients As Partners or Patients As Tokens?

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
4

Reblogged from Health Care Social Media Monitor:

Click to visit the original post

It has been fascinating to watch a discussion take place on social media centering on the pertinent issue of whether patient engagement is a concept which is truly being embraced or is mere tokenism.

The debate started with the announcement of a Canadian Patient Experience Summit:

Connect with other healthcare leaders at the NATIONAL FORUM ON PATIENT EXPERIENCE and help shape the future of patient centred care in Canada.

Read more… 403 more words

The author of this post, Marie Ennis-O'Connor, is a respected patient advocate, speaker, blogger, PR consultant and health activist from Ireland. This was originally published on her site, 'Health Care Social Media Monitor', one of Healthline's Top Health Blogs for 2012.