Tag: Minimally Disruptive Medicine

Is the practice of medicine making doctors sick?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 24 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters   

Sue Robins of Vancouver has an irresistible writing talent that’s somehow both quietly approachable and yet sneakily explosive. We see this talent in her books A Bird’s Eye View: Stories of  a Life Lived in Health Care or Ducks in a Row: Healthcare Reimagined.  We also see it in her compelling blog essay, “We Are All In This Together” as she explores the “basic lack of humanity that ails health care – a lack of humanity for patients, families, staff, clinicians, physicians and administrators.”  As Sue says:

“We are all in this mess together.    .     . Continue reading “Is the practice of medicine making doctors sick?” →

Six ways NOT to motivate patients to change

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

In classic scientific understatement, U.K. researchers Drs. Michael Kelly and Mary Barker observed that “most efforts to change health behaviours have had limited success.”(1)

No kidding. Right now, even as you read this, academic researchers all over the globe are applying for (and getting) grant funding to embark on yet another new study examining smokers who don’t quit, couch potatoes who don’t get off the couch, or overweight people who don’t lose weight. I can’t be 100% certain, of course, but I’m betting my next squirt of nitro spray that these studies will no doubt conclude that, yes indeed, those people do need to change their behaviour, and “further study is required”. Continue reading “Six ways NOT to motivate patients to change” →

First, there was compliance. Then, adherence. Now, concordance!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 29 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

Non-compliant patients who, for whatever reason, do not follow doctors’ orders are a pain in the neck to their physicians. But to me, the most problematic part of that statement is the use of the word non-compliant. Simon Davies of the U.K.’s Teenage Cancer Trust once described it as “a word that sounds like it has punishment at the end of it.”  Yet physicians are frustrated about why so many of us still refuse to take their expert medical advice, particularly around taking recommended medications.  Continue reading “First, there was compliance. Then, adherence. Now, concordance!” →

If you’re clueless and you know it . . .

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

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 party conversations about zinc and copper sediment in the Fraser River estuary.

That kind of clueless.
 Continue reading “If you’re clueless and you know it . . .” →