Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
© Elaine Schattner, 2009, 2022 By : Template Sell.
Yesterday’s Washington Post Sports has a clip from CNN, 20 years ago, when basketball star Magic Johnson announced on TV that he had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The date was Nov 7, 1991. “Where were you when Magic made his announcement? What were your thoughts on Johnson and HIV/AIDS that day and how […]
From an article in today’s New York Times on hiring discrimination against people who smoke: “There is nothing unique about smoking,” said Lewis Maltby, president of the Workrights Institute, who has lobbied vigorously against the practice. “The number of things that we all do privately that have negative impact on our health is endless. If […]
The big health story of the week, headlining the business news, is that Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and usual CEO, is taking another medical leave. This is hardly a surprising development, given that the 55 year old corporate leader has had a complex medical course since at least 2003. In August, 2004 he told Apple […]
Here’s a partial list of why some thoughtful, articulate patients might be reluctant to mention symptoms to their doctors:
1. Respect for the doctor – when the patient feels what he’s experiencing isn’t worth taking up a physician’s time, what I’d call the “time-worthy” problem;
2. Guilt – when the patient feels she shouldn’t complain about anything relatively minor, because she’s lucky to be alive;
3. Worry – when patient’s anxious or afraid the symptoms are a sign of the condition worsening, and so
I was saddened yesterday to learn of the death of Jill Clayburgh. The 66 year old actress died on Friday in her Connecticut home. According to ABC news and the LA Times among other reports, she’d had chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) for 21 years. This means she lived with CLL for nearly a third of […]
Last October, the U.S. Senate (on 10/13/09) and House (retroactively, on 10/28/09) voted to support the designation of October 13, 2009, as a National Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. The point was to draw public attention to the distinct needs of metastatic BC patients: women who live every day with this condition but, for the most part, are not heralded in pink.
If there’s one obvious thing I didn’t learn until I was well into my forties it’s this:
Don’t let a day go by without doing something you feel good about.
This message is not unusual, cryptic or even interesting. It’s simple, really so trite you could find it in most any “how having cancer changed my life” book available in bookstores and on-line.
Why say it again? Everyone knows we should relax and enjoy sunny weekend days like this.
Because it’s a reminder to myself, as much as for some readers and maybe a few fledgling doctors out there. One of my…
“The insurance market as it works today basically slices and dices the population. It says, well you people with medical conditions, over here, and you people without them, over here…
– Jonathan Cohn, Editor of The New Republic, speaking on The Brian Lehrer Show, February 16, 2010*
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There’s a popular, partly true, sometimes useful and very dangerous notion that we can control our health. Maybe even fend off cancer.
I like the idea that we can make smart choices, eat sensible amounts of whole foods…
