I don’t often ask for donations here, but I’ve recently been getting more educated about the world of diabetes, and this campaign especially inspires me. So please click to donate, as I’m doing today.

You may recall that in December, my SuperPatient event at Brown University featured Kerri Morrone Sparling, the local diabetes blogger known on social media as @SixUntilMe.  I love everything about her approach, from her self-image (“Diabetes doesn’t define me, but it helps explain me”) to her wonderfully expressive writing to her advocacy for others.

This is one example. It’s Valentine season, and Partnering for Diabetes Change coalition is running a “Spare A Rose” campaign.  The idea is that on Valentine’s Day (or any day), you buy one less rose, and give the money instead to help kids with diabetes who can’t afford either the tests strips to monitor their condition, or the insulin they need.

I was disturbed, and got educated, when I read last weekend what it’s like when someone like Kerri has their blood sugar get so elevated. Feed your head with her posts: [Read more…]

After 198 days on the road this year, 64 trips, 180,771 miles and ten countries, I’m taking a break. Off duty until January, then spending the first week of 2015 at meetings in London.

I’ll probably still blog when things come to mind. For those, scroll down. Meanwhile, for time-sensitive communications, see my Contact page.

May the holiday season bring you and yours all the best – and thank you to all my clients who’ve supported this important movement for better healthcare around the world!
[Read more…]

Joe Cocker has died of cancer. The BBC story, twenty minutes ago, is here. Holy crap, he’s (was) less than six years older than me. (I’m going on Medicare in six weeks!)

The man was a maniac singer. My biggest laugh of the past decade was when someone put subtitles on his epic Woodstock rendition of “I get by with a little help from my friends.” See the YouTube below. (Email subscribers, if you can’t see it, coming online to see it here.)

Joe, this one’s for you, man. Hope you’re having a wild time, wherever you are now.

 

My wife Ginny is a veterinarian. Being a vet like her is different from being a human doctor in several ways:

• Vets emphasize prevention, to avoid avoidable disease
• For years many have offered “pet portal” software to view your records from home (let me Google that for you)
• Treatment decisions are entirely up to the client (though there are certainly haughty vets who don’t like to be questioned)
• Cost is always a consideration
• To her the “patient” is not the same as the client
• and many more.

But probably the biggest difference is embodied in the excellent talk below, from TEDMED 2014 in Vancouver, in which a “people doctor” gets called to consult … at a zoo … and discovers a world of new insights that have changed how she practices.

The amusing thing is that Ginny has always joked about how “people doctors” only have to know one species – and often only one system in that specialty – while veterinarians have to know all the systems in all the species they treat. (Eyes, heart, teeth, kidneys, you name it… not to mention variations like a dog or cat uterus having two “horns” (forks).) That difference turns out to be a joke at the end of this.

It’s a thought provoking 18 minutes. Enjoy.  (Email subscribers, if you can’t see it, click here to come online.)

Here’s a link to the Zoobiquity conference she mentions, where vets and people docs share thoughts. That would be fun to attend. Check out the site – its banner asks, in sequence:

• Do beluga whales get breast cancer?
• Do dragonflies get obese?
• Do pandas get eating disorders?
• Do flamingos get heart attacks?
• Do koalas get STDs?

Then, this … check out the intersection:

p.s. This talk is part of a new list created on LinkedIn by Dutch colleague Lucien Engelen, 10 TED Talks that change(d) healthcare. You can read it there, or you can watch it as a YouTube list. But this one isn’t on that list.)

If you can’t see the video, click here to open it on YouTube.

Second in a series of posts as I approach Medicare in February. Part 1 was here.

Thanks immensely to long-ago co-worker Harry Zane, now an experienced Medicare participant, for this 15 minutes of standup comedy. I didn’t just laugh out loud; I hooted.:-)

The “comic” is Fritz Coleman, who (it says) is an icon in LA broadcasting – longtime weather person. Say hi to him on Twitter at @FritzNBCLA.

They did some odd editing in random places, inserting pictures of conference participants on top of the video, with no connection to what he was saying. Don’t let it throw you – enjoy. (My favorite was the smiling young nun whose face appeared as he was describing his 95 year old mother!)