Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Grand Rounds Volume 6 No 6


Welcome to Grand Rounds Volume 6 No 6. I'm Dr. Joe Kim and I'm your host this week. I’ve hosted Grand Rounds on my one of my other blogs (http://www.MedicineandTechnology.com) but today, I’m hosting Grand Rounds from my other blog http://www.NonClinicalJobs.com. Thanks for joining me here this week as we look through the "non-clinical" lens this week.

The theme this week is on non-clinical areas within health care. Since we’re all bloggers, we all embrace some elements of writing and journalism. These areas of medical communications continue to grow each year. Let's explore several different non-clinical sectors within the world of health care:

Public Health and Patient Safety

Let's consider the non-clinical world of public health and population health. Look beyond the individual patient for a moment. Let's look at the larger population. Marya from Healthcare, etc. evaluates our health care system and asks, “Will more healthcare bring better health?” It's not a simple answer when you examine the public health effects of socioeconomic status, environmental factors, behavior, and others. There are many non-clinical careers in the world of public health where you can explore how these factors impact health care.

Stacey at the ACP Internist reminds everyone to Get your darn flu shot! What more needs to be said? I've gotten my flu shot. Have you? Don't be a public health hazard by avoiding immunization (although herd immunity may protect us to a point).

Speaking of the flu, Duncan Cross had the flu last week and he writes about Dr. Cross’s* Compendium of Useful Illnesses. (*Duncan Cross is not a doctor.)

Speaking of vaccines, Dr. Charles from The Examining Room of Dr. Charles writes about his experience with the H1N1 Shot. Are you ready for your shot?

Rita from Supporting Safer Healthcare writes about the importance of patient safety and potentially dangerous doctors. Consider this: Hiding a Problem Doctor in Plain Site.

Nancy from Teen Health 411 writes about Set Your Clocks and Check Your Stocks! The Get Ready Campaign from the American Public Health Association has a great website to help your family be prepared for emergencies.

DrRich from The Covert Rationing Blog writes about the topic of Preventive Medicine - Those Clueless Cardiologists Are At It Again. Preventive medicine and public health are very closely linked and you'll have to read his post to follow how our politicians (and our clueless cardiologists) have energetically tried to medicalize preventive healthcare, thus rendering it an extremely expensive and often-barely-useful endeavor. Real preventive healthcare takes place in the home.

Medical Management

Barbara from Florence dot com writes about the root causes of different types of errors in Why a trick is still a treat. Are health care leaders implementing the right types of risk reduction strategies? The non-clinical world of medical management may be right for you if you like to develop and implement health policies.

Health Care and Politics

Jonathon from Receiving writes about Politics, Parasites, and a Proof of Principle. I generally try to avoid politics, but you can read about one doctor's opinion on how to solve the health care crisis. Many physicians have left clinical practice to pursue a non-clinical career in politics. I certainly won't be one of them.

Wellness and Fitness

Dr. Jolie Bookspan from The Fitness Fixer has been collecting some interesting data about sitting straight up. Read about it here: Fast Fitness - Contest: What Does It Take To Sit Upright? Back health is important, but do you know how to keep your back healthy? The health and fitness industry is another area where health care professionals are finding some interesting non-clinical opportunities.

Health Insurance and Managed Care

How to Cope with Pain writes about Help with Insurance Co-Pays. Learn about an organization that subsidizes co-pays for patients with certain diseases for whom there is financial hardship. This organization's overall goals are both to help patients get needed medical care as well as maintain financial stability.

Henry from InsureBlog writes about Unintended Consequences: Wellness, Genetics and GINA. Sometimes what seems like a good idea has hidden pitfalls. InsureBlog reports on a new genetics testing law that could end up hurting the folks it purports to help.

David from the Health Business Blog writes about how the Fears of the public option are overblown. The Business Roundtable is vehemently opposed to the public option. In this post I argue their position doesn't make sense.

Speaking of health insurance and managed care, many physicians, pharmacists, and nurses have left clinical practice to work for insurance companies. I wonder how these companies will change if we see a public option emerge.

Pharma

Amy from Diabetes Mine writes about Talking to Pharma, Online and Offline. The world of social media is evolving rapidly. Do patients and health care professionals know how to leverage social media properly?

Speaking of pharma, Louise from the Colorado Health Insurance Insider writes about How the Pharmaceutical Industry Drives Health Care Costs. Why are some drugs so expensive in this country compared to other countries?

Wilderness Medicine

Need to escape the hospital? Then perhaps you'd like to consider wilderness medicine. Paul from Medicine for the Outdoors writes about Sea Urchins and Such.

If you're in the wilderness, you may meet some interesting parasites. DrVes from Allergy Notes writes about Helminth Trichuris suis (pig whipworm) had no effect as therapy for allergic rhinitis. Fascinating.

Technology

DrVes from Clinical Cases and Images writes about how Hospitals mandating use of smartphones for affiliated doctors. I couldn't live without my smartphone and I know many others who feel the same way. Which smartphone operating system will dominate health care as more physicians switch from PDAs to smartphones? Speaking of smartphones, I hope you'll join me at my other blog (

Research

When we speak of research, we may think of clinical research, basic science research, and then we may get into non-tradition research, dietary research, etc. Well, speaking of food, Laika from Laika's MedLibLog writes about this: Hot News: Curry, Curcumin, Cancer & Cure. Now I love curry, but I don't think that we should all start eating curry to kill cancer cells.

This concludes Grand Rounds Volume 6 No 6. here at NonClinicalJobs.com. I hope you enjoyed looking at some different areas within health care through a non-clinical perspective.

4 comments:

  1. Super job, Dr Kim!

    Thanks so much for hosting, and for including our post.
     

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  2. Thanks for hosting this week's edition of Grand Rounds!

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  3. Great job, very straightforward and readable. Thanks for hosting!

    ReplyDelete