Booby Traps Part 3: Staying Focused and Honoring Your Decision

The more complex and high stakes a health care decision is – like with genetic testing and mastectomies (see Booby Traps Part 1 and Part 2

An invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast (pale area at the center) surrounded by spikes of whitish scar tissue in the surrounding yellow fatty tissue. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Booby Traps Pt. 2: Human nature and the health care system

English: Naval Medical Clinic Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (Oct. 25, 2002) — Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Dana L. Ford, a mammogram technician, aids a patient in completing her annual mammogram evaluation. Breast cancer is the leading form of cancer found in women. Naval Medical Clinic Pearl Harbor conducts approximately 2,300 mammograms annually. U.S. Navy photo […]

Booby Traps: Pitfalls along the path of genetic testing and mastectomies

Right breast cancer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first time I wrestled with the issue of whether to get my breasts cut off, I was in my early forties. Partners in life, my breasts had done right by me. They delighted me in all their underwhelming adolescent glory. Then they’d been a source of panting, […]

Social Media and the Patient Community Explosion

There’s a great post over at Diabetes Mine about the explosion in patient interaction and patient communities around social media. It’s well worth a read so you should head on over and take a look. Here’s an excerpt.

Everyone wants to know what the patient community is thinking these days. The explosion of social media […]

Tobacco Industry’s Growing Power: Bad Acts, Lessons Learned, and New Tricks

black and mucus filled lungs nearby (Photo credit: Let Ideas Compete)

Fifty Years of Lying

The first speaker at the 2012 American Public Health Association (APHA) conference’s two-hour session on tobacco was Ms. Sharon Eubanks, the RICO lawyer who successfully tried the tobacco industry for fraud under the Clinton administration. She described how that […]

Recipes for Success: How to shrink the lifespan gap in your community

English: Aerial view of Kansas City, Kansas, looking southwest. The Kansas River (right-center) joins the Missouri River (left). A small piece of Kansas City, Missouri is visible on the left of the Missouri River. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

More and more research shows that how long you live may be determined by where you live […]