In March of this year, Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale School of Medicine, asked this question on Twitter. I am curious to know from patients…esp those recently in the hospital…what do you wish we did better? What were the most obvious ways that quality could be improved. Throughout hospitalization & in the transition home. We should...
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By Stephanie Zimmerman, RN, MSN Dear Healthcare Providers, Although professionally, I am a former pediatric oncology nurse practitioner, I write this letter as an individual who lives with the long-lasting impact of late effects stemming from the successful treatment of Ewing’s Sarcoma as a child in the late 1970’s. I write because I am fortunate to be...
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Stephanie Zimmerman has been featured in two previous posts. In a June 2016 post called, “After Cancer Treatment: Living Out the Cure,” Stephanie shared her experiences as a survivor of childhood cancer, specifically her experience of long-term side effects of cancer treatment. In a subsequent post, Stephanie @KindredBelle shared her advice...
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Why do patients blog? Why do they reveal personal information and medical experiences on the Internet? 1) To Share Information Annette McKinnon, author of ‘Here’s Your Gold Watch, Rheutired,’ started her blog “to inform people about things I learned that seem obvious to me now, but were hard to learn.” Carolyn Thomas, author of “My Heart...
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Do nurses eat their young? Renee Thompson asks. The answer may surprise you. “Nurses know we eat our young. Some nurses think it’s good to “toughen up” the new nurses. In reality it’s not. It decreases confidence and competence. “ Renee Thompson, nurse, author, educator and advocate for workplace change, is making it her...
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Matthew Katz, MD is Medical Director, Radiation Oncology at Lowell General Hospital in the Greater Boston Area. But those on Twitter and in the blogosphere know him as “subatomicdoc”: a ‘handle’ he’s been using for a number of years on the Internet. Thursday December 12, Dr. Katz was the guest on the Health Communication, Health Literacy and...
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Physician Parents When your parents are both physicians, you have a unique perspective on the health care system. This is especially true for me because of the time when I grew up. During those days, on call physicians didn’t leave the phone calls to an answering service at night. Our phone would ring, my father would answer it at all hours and would...
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Did you know… In a study conducted in 2012, 69% of patients diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and 81% of those diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer did not understand that chemotherapy was not at all likely to cure their cancer? That a national survey showed physicians asked patients what they want in their care only ½ the time? That patients ask...
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There are two phrases making the rounds that describe you, a member of the growing Medivizor.com community. One is “e-patient” and the other is “smart patient.” What is an e-patient? Who created the phrase? Published in March of 1996, Health Online: How to Find Health Information, Support Groups, and Self-Help Communities in Cyberspace, first...
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“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. …live in the question.” —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet Leeching or blood letting was part of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Instead of a lancet, leeches were placed on various parts of the body to slowly remove blood. Leech farms,...
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