For just one moment… forget about what Jesus would do.

Today was a good day at work.

I cried.

The last time I recollect crying at work was at least 6 or more years ago when a patient of mine – a young black male, who was his mother’s only son – had been murdered, and as I looked into her bloodshot, tired, hollow, intently peering and watery eyes, volumes were communicated though we neither said a word.

I couldn’t bear her gaze, and after what seemed ages, I averted my eyes, and departed behind a nearby curtain in the Trauma ICU to cry. There, my tears flowed like twin rivers, swollen by a storm, albeit an emotional one, which was joined by the two smaller tributaries of my nostrils. Gazing over the city from atop the 11th story of the teaching hospital through tear-drenched eyes, I wondered… was this what dear Mother Mary felt like when she gazed upon her only son as he hung from that cross?

Today, I wept for

What do heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, stroke and cancer have in common?

Good news!

As Hippocrates is attributed as saying, “Let food be thy medicine.”

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The New Science Behind America’s Deadliest Diseases

• By LAURA LANDRO

  THE INFORMED PATIENT
  Updated July 16, 2012, 8:14 p.m. ET

  What do heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, stroke and cancer have in common? Scientists have linked each of these to a condition known as chronic inflammation, and they are studying how high-fat foods and excess body weight may increase the risk for fatal disorders.

  

  While much focus has been on fighting inflammation with drugs, researchers are getting a better understanding of the links connecting diet, inflammation and illness and discovering ways that foods can help keep inflammation in check. Laura Landro has details on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty Images.

  Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury and outside irritants. But when the irritants don’t let up, because of a diet of high-fat foods, too much body fat and smoking, for example, the immune system can spiral out of control and increase the risk for disease. Experts say when inflammation becomes chronic it can damage heart valves and brain cells, trigger strokes, and promote resistance to insulin, which leads to diabetes. It also is associated with the development of cancer.

  Much of the research on chronic inflammation has

“No doctor ever asked me questions like that before.”

From a holistic healthcare perspective, a problematic issue that remains a common thread among many healthcare practitioners is the notion that a patient is a collection of symptoms, problems to be solved, or diseases cured.

This is not some witchcraft mumbo jumbo hyperbole, akin to the fallacious notion that frequently accompanies “naturopathic” ideology, which itself is wholly without any merit, scientific or otherwise… save that some damn fools spend money on that snake oil peddled by unscrupulous vendors.

This simple idea is that we are an entire collection of things – emotions, thoughts, physiological symptoms and more – all work together to make us who we are. It’s kinda’ like asking the proverbial question, ‘which leg of a three-legged stool is most important?’

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The Simple Idea That Is Transforming Health Care

A focus on quality of life helps medical providers see the big picture—and makes for healthier, happier patients

By LAURA LANDRO

• Updated April 16, 2012, 1:32 p.m. ET

A very simple question is changing the delivery of medical care: How is your health affecting your quality of life? Laura Landro explains on Lunch Break. Photo: Robert Neubecker/WSJ.

A very simple question is changing the delivery of medical care: How is your health affecting your quality of life? Laura Landro explains on Lunch Break. Photo: Robert Neubecker/WSJ.

A very simple question is changing the delivery of medical care:

How is your health affecting your quality of life?

For decades, numbers drove the treatment of diseases like asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. Public-health officials focused on reducing mortality rates and hitting targets like blood-sugar levels for people with diabetes or cholesterol levels for those with heart disease.

Doctors, of course, are still monitoring such numbers. But now health-care providers are also adding a whole different, more subjective measure—how people feel about their condition and overall well-being. They’re pushing for programs where nurses or trained counselors meet with people and ask

Could malaria be eliminated in our lifetime?

We in the USA – and other developed nations – think nothing of malaria, because we are not directly affected by that dreaded disease.

It is a disease that is entirely preventable and treatable.

However, we are indirectly affected by it.

How, and why?

Malaria remains the single greatest worldwide killer of human beings, and – as the article states – “was responsible for 655,000 deaths in 2010.”

Those figures are according to research by

“It may not be true, but that’s the way I choose to believe,” and other dumb sayings.

“It may not be true, but that’s the way I choose to believe.”

Today, I overheard someone make that remark.

It was made in reference to an  issue of faith, or religion, and was an adjunct, or follow-up comment – as if issuing an apology of sorts – to a rather benign and off-the-cuff utterance made by the same person, such as “God bless you,” or “the good LORD willing, and the creek don’t rise.”

Who made it, and where it was made is of no consequence.

What I’d like to focus upon is

It’s called “Cancer.”

“… the plan is to do radiation and chemotherapy…”

There it was, buried midway in the emailed paragraph – right after the other phrase “they found two more tumors...”

I wondered about that.

There was no need to say it.

It’s that unspoken kind of thing.

It’s called “Cancer.”

That solitary word strikes fear into the hearts of many. And the longer we live,

It’s official… I’m a nerd.

Image via Wikipedia Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Hey!

What do you read for fun?

It seemed an entirely apropos title for this entry.

What DO I read “for fun”?

Well, here are two excerpts from items I’m now reading.

ICU had Bowel Movements

Yesterday, I received a patient transfer from ICU after a carotid endarterectomy. She was stable, elderly, though was best described as “needy” at times. Some folks are just that way. I think it’s a type of abuse.

Anyway, the Nurse whom had cared for her gave me report on the patient’s condition (in person), and when she got to the bowel/GI part, she mentioned that