Dr. Cranquis' Mumbled Gripes
(Disclaimer: Questions related to medical topics will be answered to the best of Dr. Cranquis' (and Google's) knowledge, but the internet-delivered wisdom on this blog CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT SUBSTITUTE for your Real-Life Doctor's personal attention + examination, and your own common sense too! If you think you're having a medical emergency, hang up and go email 911. The author of this blog takes no responsibility for any medical, relationship, scholastic, financial, or other decisions you may make based on information found in this blog.)
And since people seem to be a bit confused about this: any "real-sounding" patients names are just horrible puns, and not HIPAA violations.
…I believe that we need to promote wellbeing in the medical culture. I believe that, as medical students, as healthcare students in general, we need a place where it’s okay to talk about patient experiences and the emotions they inspired. We need to make it okay to cry after a long day of observing life and death within hospitals. Self-care needs to be something that is taught alongside clinical placements, not as a tokenistic gesture in the pre-clinical years.
This paragraph from MLAAMS’ essay is so crucial to the survival of healthcare providers as individuals — and as a profession, too!
I started Project 10 Ten a while ago, but it took a backseat to everything else going on. Now, though, I have some time and it’s back up and running. For the next few days, I’ll be posting my 10 things both here on Chronic Curve and on P10 blog so readers get an idea of what this is all…
Another bright idea/blog by ChronicCurve. I love the idea of taking time daily to focus on something positive (P10 = 10 positive things/gratitudes/goals for the day), especially if your life is a constant battle against illness and pain.
Things to remember during finals month when you are a chronically ill college student:
- Start early. Start at least a week before your finals week. Plan out small academic tasks to complete (or try to complete) each day. Splitting up your studying/workload will prevent cramming. You do not…
You know, aside from the chronic-illness-specific tips #7-9, this list is excellent advice for any student with upcoming exams!
Find an American Red Cross Blood Donation Drive near you
Every minute of every day, someone needs blood. That blood can only come from a volunteer donor, a person like you who makes the choice to donate. There is no substitute for your donation.
When you make a blood donation, you join a very select group. Currently only 3 out of every 100 people in America donate blood.
From its beginning, the American Red Cross has formed a community of service, of generous, strong and decent people bound by beliefs beyond themselves. The American Red Cross blood donor embodies this principle. Please join in the mission to maintain a safe and stable blood supply by making your appointment to donate blood.
To find out where you can donate, visit www.redcrossblood.org/ or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733 2767).
Want to know if you’re able to give blood? Review the donor eligibility guidelines.
Do it. I do. (Even though I used to pass out when having my blood drawn!)
(via aspiringdoctors)
I have written before about finding a new rheumatologist, but what about your first visit to your new rheumatologist? Here are 15 tips for when you’re done doctor shopping and ready to try them on:
Keep in mind that every doctor works differently and each person presents their disease differently…
Excellent step-by-step guide to maximizing your first visit with ANY doctor, rheumatologist or otherwise! I particularly agree with #9: “Bring a notebook and take notes.”
A 23 year old Taiwanese gamer, Chen Rong-yu, died while playing an extended run in the game League of Legends at a local Taiwanese gaming center in New Taipei. Thirty gamers surrounding him did not notice he was dead until 9 hours later. His body was positioned upright with his hands motionless on his keyboard.
This is a starking reminder than staying still for any low-acuity activity (not just limited to gaming) can yield negative results. When gaming or reading or watching TV, make sure you get up and stretch for a few minutes at a minimum to avoid chances of blood clots building up.
Rong-yu’s condition is likely related to a underlying heart condition, but the health advice is being spread throughout in case unknown underlying conditions cause more widespread deaths. His exact cause of death is unknown, but police suspect it was cold weather, low temperature, remaining stationary, and perhaps an underlying heart condition leading to cardiac arrest. I think a better idea would be to keep a better eye on your fellow gamer and make sure he/she is okay. Take a break, guys.
The body relaxes its sphincters upon death. So basically, this Taiwanese gamer sat motionless AND EMANATING THE SMELL OF A DIRTY DIAPER for 9 hours, and nobody thought this was strange.
Note to self: Never sit in any of the chairs in a public video-gaming center.
The internet is great for research and general knowledge when it comes to health, but don’t forget that webMD shows you the worst case (and every case) scenario when it comes to a headache. Don’t forget that the blog you read, unless they are citing sources, cannot diagnose you or give accurate medical advice tailored to your body. I have said this before and I will continue to say it again and again: the internet cannot take the place of a physician’s opinion or advice and pseudoscience is not welcome here.
As I always say: The only doctor you should rely on is a doctor you can smell. :)
According to this new study, researchers discovered that “at least least 10% of suicides in Britain are linked to terminal or chronic illness, accounting for more than 400 deaths a year,” meaning that one in ten suicides is linked to chronic illness. This does not even cover the suicide link…
A collection of links/resources for people who are feeling suicidal — particularly from chronic pain and illness.
This week’s theme is pain. Not just any pain, but pelvic pain. That’s right, I’m talking about vagninismus, vulvodynia, endometriosis, IBS, internal cystitis, etc. I started having pain with sex my senior year of high school and finally received a secondary diagnosis of vulvodynia in April of…
Excellent collection of links re: Pelvic Pain!
Going to college can be a scary experience for anyone, but throw a chronic illness (or multiple) into that mix and you’re bound to feel lost at some point.
This will be part one of a long series. I will do specific in-depth posts on certain aspects— dorm life, for example, will be a singular extensive post. For now, here you have The Basics: Preparing for School Part I…
Chronic Curve knows what she is talking about — she deals with chronic illnesses (Rheumatoid Arthritis and severe scoliosis) while doing pre-med college courses. If this post is any indicator of the thoroughness with which she approaches her studies, I’ve got a feeling she’ll become a fine doctor someday. Check it out.
I have actually posted about my personal dietary routine before, Thought for Food. So fear not, you haven’t “clogged up” anything too terribly. :)
Now that Baby Cranquis is a over a year old, he’s eating pretty much everything we eat, EXCEPT we’re holding off on giving him anything “sweet” (desserts, candy, syrup, honey) as long as possible, to hopefully strengthen his tastes for the healthy stuff (veggies, grains, and we allow all the sweet fruits he wants). Whatever his 6 teeth can’t chew up, we blend up. I guess we really haven’t given him much dairy yet either (except a few trials of eggs and milk to see if he has any allergies to them), but he’s still getting all the breast-milk he wants — as long as he gets plenty of produce, he won’t be calcium-deficient by any means.
Being a doctor can certainly jack up your eating habits, if you let it. I really pushed my nutrition to the back-burner during my 3rd-year of med school, and somewhat again during intern year of residency — and I paid the price. I would get sick so often, I felt tired all the time (which I at first chalked up to “being a med student/resident”), I would struggle with depression. After I started being more proactive about eating better whenever possible, my overall physical and mental health improved (though I still felt tired and sometimes depressed, but heck, that’s the life of a resident.)
It’s truly sad how doctors and other healthcare providers often have some of the poorest lifestyles (nutrition, exercise, sleep, water, time away from the job). We have to start practicing what we preach! Nowadays, we laugh at doctors who still smoke — but I predict that someday, we will laugh at doctors who still eat McDonald’s.
***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 3; Ask Box: Will Open 6/28/11 at 6am Pacific Standard Time***
Everyone in medicine knows what this time of the year means. New medical school graduates start in their new positions as interns, and our old interns are magically promoted to residents. People often joke by saying “don’t get sick in July”, meaning that the care provided is substandard in the…
Hey, I’d always wondered about this! While the data doesn’t support a “In July, everybody dies” theory, I remember how much I dreaded being on-call for the Family Medicine inpatient service during July — All the newbie interns would be freaking out down in the ER, absolutely convinced that (for example) “an asymptomatic patient with known hypertension and now with a BP of 150/90 because she didn’t take her meds today” needed to be admitted to the ICU for a cardiac workup! *smh* :)
This is something I wrestle with. I work in an incredibly intense, and often sorrowful environment. Critical care means that most of my patients are teetering on a tenuous line between life and death. These moments, days and weeks serve as some of the most horrible times for families, where they…
Another excellent post about ethical/behavioral considerations among healthcare professionals. In my experience, if black/gallows humor is becoming more obvious/un-private in a clinic/hospital setting, this usually is a signal that the staff is being over-stressed.
Thanks to anonymous tipster Private Aye-Aye, I was able to contact Lauren Streib, the researcher who had pulled together the data that went into this infographic from Newsweek. And she very kindly replied to my request for research article links! With her permission, I’m posting them here for your edjimafication.
- First of all, apparently “most of the lifestyle points were taken from the book The Longevity Project” by Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin. (Any of the following bullet points without journal references likely come from that book). (EDIT: Hey, cool! Dr. Friedman commented about this post — See the Disqus section below!)
- Female and Still Have Ovaries: “According to a study at Purdue University in 2009, female dogs that kept their ovaries consistently lived longer, echoing the Nurses Health Study published by the John Wayne Cancer Institute.”
- Mother younger than 25 when you were born: “A study published by the University of Chicago’s Center on Aging concluded that ‘being born to a young mother is the major predictor of human longevity.’ A person with a birth mother younger than 25 is twice as likely to reach age 100.”
- Eat 25% fewer calories than recommended: “Numerous studies have found that restricting an animal’s calories by 25 to 30 percent can extend their lifespan. A five-year trial called CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Restricted Intake of Energy), which involves 250 healthy volunteers, ages 25 to 45, assigned to either restrict their calories by 25 percent or be part of a control group, has already produced some interesting data. For instance, calorie restriction reduces insulin levels, core body temperature, energy expenditure and DNA damage. It can also increase cellular resistance to stress proteins.”
- Brush/Floss, 2 cups of tea, Exercise moderately, Love your job, Not drink soda, Started formal schooling after age 6: Referenced in the Longevity Project. (Bonus:”Taking a calcium supplement” and “not smoking” (duh!) also helps, but these were not included in the infographic.)
- Live in a Right-Wing Dictatorship: “A University of Michigan study finds that longevity increased faster under right-wing governments in southern Europe than under social democracies in the Nordic countries.The study, published online in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, examines changes in longevity patterns in eight European countries from 1950 to 2000. The countries studied were Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Spain.”
- Be a Seventh-Day Adventist: “A large study of centenarians released Thursday in the journal Science identified a host of genetic markers that can be used to predict exceptional longevity with 77 percent accuracy, a finding that opens an intriguing window into the complexities of human aging.” (I remember hearing about a similar finding in a National Geographic article a few years ago.)
- Be an optimist: “a study of 5,000 university students for more than 40 years found that the most pessimistic tended to die younger. As well, a longer study of 180 Catholic nuns from early adulthood to old age found that those who wrote positive autobiographies of their early 20s outlived those who wrote negative accounts.”
- Start formal schooling after age six: “Also from The Longevity Project —- ‘Children who started first grade at age five were at higher risk of dying early, and those who started school on schedule (at age six) lived longer.’ The book notes a study by M.L. Kern and H.S. Friedman “Early Educational Milestones as Predictors of Lifelong Academic Achievement, Midlife Adjustment and Longevity” in the Journal of applied Developmental Psychology 30 (2009) 419-430”
- Two Bonus Factors that weren’t included in the infographic “because of an art director’s call”: (1) Earning more money — “A study reported in the Sept. 9, 2004, New England Journal of Medicine, found that people earning $15,000 a year or less from 1972 to 1989 were three times more likely to die prematurely than those earning $70,000 or more. (2) Being a Married Male — “Study published in 2004 by the Center for Economic Research at ETH Zurich: men live longer if married, but women older than 65 live 1.4 years longer if they are single.” [Looks like either way, somebody loses!]
Again, big thanks to Lauren Streib for sharing the “inside scoop” on that fascinating piece of informative art! :)
thuc:
Article by Mashable
Sitting down, which most of us do for at least eight hours each day, might be the worst thing we do for our health all day.
We’ve been preaching the benefits of stand-up desks for a while around here — and no one needs this good news more than social media-obsessed web geeks. A recent medical journal study showed that people who sit for most of their day are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack.
Now knowing this, are you going to go buy a stand-up desk?
Stand or DEATH!
