Category: Health care

Why you’ll listen to me – but not to your doctor

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 15 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

As I like to remind my women’s heart health presentation audiences, I am not a physician. I’m not a nurse. I am merely a dull-witted heart attack survivor. I also warn them that a lot of what I’m about to say to them is already available out there, likely printed on some wrinkled-up Heart and Stroke Foundation brochures stuffed into the magazine racks at their doctor’s office.

So when the organizer of one of my free upcoming WomenHeart talks at a large community centre where I speak twice a year called me to say that registration for this presentation is already full with a waiting list – and that’s with weeks still to go yet! – my interest was piqued.

As any experienced public speaker can appreciate, you’re only as good as the audience thinks you are. When a repeat event like mine fills up quickly thanks almost entirely to word-of-mouth buzz, this tells me that women attending this talk must be pretty darned motivated to learn more about how they can improve their heart health.

But meanwhile, many doctors I know lament the fact that it’s tough for them to motivate their patients to even think about lifestyle improvements to modify known heart disease risks.  Continue reading “Why you’ll listen to me – but not to your doctor” →

Would it kill you to treat your patients with respect?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Not since I was a teenager having my wisdom teeth surgically removed with the aid of that luscious nitrous oxide laughing gas have I floated home from a dental appointment feeling so exhilarated. Because yesterday, I took a personal stand against rudeness and disrespect in the delivery of my own health care.

Regular readers here will already know how surviving a heart attack (plus, I suspect, my advancing progress towards Cranky Old Lady Land) have made me increasingly ticked off by health care providers who:

  • treat us as if we are simply a piece of meat on a slab – and worse, an invisible piece of meat on a slab
  • forget that we are far more than just the 10 o’clock procedure in their daytimers
  • disregard the fact that there is an actual real live human being attached to the body part they happen to be working on

My recent mission in life seems to be to put the brakes on this kind of pervasively rude behaviour, one health care provider at a time.   Continue reading “Would it kill you to treat your patients with respect?” →

Is your doctor too cozy with Big Pharma?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 2 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Consumers, in a turn of the tables, have given their doctors a checkup and the diagnosis looks pretty grim. They think doctors are too cozy with Big Pharma, according to the 2nd annual prescription drug survey conducted by Consumer Reports National Research Center.

This survey of adults who currently take a prescription drug found that the vast majority object to the payments and rewards pharmaceutical companies routinely dole out to doctors because they feel these are negatively influencing how they treat patients. Other findings include:     Continue reading “Is your doctor too cozy with Big Pharma?” →

Where would you rather get sick – in the U.S. or in Canada?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

I have an ever-so-slightly jaded view of American health care since spending time at Mayo Clinic. While there, I met an alarming number of heart attack survivors from across the U.S. – yes, even those who thought they had good health insurance coverage  – who had lost their homes, their businesses, and faced collection agencies at the door or even imminent bankruptcy because they’d had a cardiac event that had left them with crushing medical debt.

Last month in Toronto, the 5th semi-annual Munk Debate featured the Great Health Care Debate resolution: “I would rather get sick in the United States than in Canada.”  Here are some of the pros and cons raised by each side during this debate:

I would rather get sick in the U.S. because:

  • The U.S. spends 87% more per person than Canada on health care ($7,290/patient vs. $3,895).
  • 54% of American men had PSA tests for prostate cancer. Only 16% of Canadian men did.
  • There are 34 CT scanners per million citizens in the U.S. In Canada, only 12.
  • There are 27 MRI machines per million citizens in the U.S. compared to just six in Canada.
  • Canadians wait twice as long as Americans for elective surgery like hip replacements.
  • The U.S. is responsible for the vast majority of health care innovations, both medically and technologically. They are the world’s undisputed leaders in biomedical research and diagnostic treatment.

But on the other hand, here’s why it’s better to get sick in Canada:  Continue reading “Where would you rather get sick – in the U.S. or in Canada?” →