Shutting Down

I’ve decided to close this blog off for the time being with IP now taking priority. It was worth the experiment. I suggest interested parties give it a try.

I’m going to answer the most recent comments.

Signing off for now.

Back in Business

I’ve been out of touch for a while finishing up my last term of school before independent practicum. Thanks to those who have recently commented. Hope to be posting some more content soon.

Media, the Flu and a Missing Cat

The cat found her way outside tonight. So I spent the last half hour roaming around the outside of the house making that sound one makes when trying to attract cat’s attention. Cat was having none of it until, for some reason, she squawked at me from the darkness. Probably had enough entertainment watching me stumble about and was ready for a bit of food.

Cat is to blame for me writing this at 1:19am.

School is full of whispers about the swine flu today.  The media has picked up the pace in the last week with the flu leading the news. I get the feeling the news people are always a bit deflated when no one outside Mexico has been reported dead or hospitalized. Still, since hearing about the first cases, I can’t shake a feeling that the situation will get much worse before it gets better. Then, I wonder how much of my perception is being influenced by overzealous media reports.

Incidentally, the WHO are going to attempt to re-brand swine flu since the current term is threatening the pork industry.

Google Maps Track Swine Flu Pandemic

Click HERE to go to map of swine flu pandemic.

Swine Flu Confirmed in Canada

Just watching the news this evening. Canada has had its first confirmed cases of swine flu that really was just a matter of time. The cases are all from travelers returning from Mexico and are being reported primarily as mild cases.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star reported today that over 100 people in Mexico have died from the current flu outbreak.

There is a general feeling that Canada can handle an outbreak, and current flu drugs apparently work against the strain.

Since flu symptoms are the same as regular seasonal flu, without specific tests, there is no way to tell the difference.

Putting things in perspective, 4,000 people die yearly from the regular seasonal flu in Canada.

The standard list of precautions are being circulated:

• If you are sick stay home
• Wash your hands frequently
• See a health professional if you experience severe flu-like symptoms

The Blunted Expression of Text

An interesting story in the Star this week explores how texting can often come across as rather blunt.

It seems that some of the texting generation have put aside sensitivity of how their message may be received by others.

Their priority is to create a short and compact message, but it can often come across to the recipient as blunt to borderline abusive.

“They [students] sound like they’re going to burn your door down,” says Professor Tim Blackmore in a Star interview.

“They send messages that are both lazy and in the imperative – “Hey, u didn’t tell me what was wrong with my paper.”

“You think, that’s some crust. But then they come into your office and they are crying. They are nice people. But their messages are surface, not about depth. They need to step back and get some context.”

In the early days of email, I remember paying little attention to how my emails sounded. And often I received a terse response.

I also received emails myself that could be read as terse and insensitive. When I questioned the sender, they seemed mystified by my interpretation.

I often thought the mood of the reader could also add to the misinterpretation of the emotional intent behind the message.

If I were in a bad mood, I may read a friend’s email as negative.

These days, I’m often careful to word emails neutrally, especially when emailing work or professionally related contacts. I may even occasionally revert to a letter writing style using dear and sincerely.

And God forbid you use sarcasm since it is almost always misinterpreted in text based messages.

World Records no Barrier to This Centenarian

Canadian Jaring Timmerman broke world swimming records earlier this week in Winnipeg. But this wasn’t his only accomplishment.

Mr. Timmerman just recently turned 100.

Competing in the 100-104 year old category (there is also a 105-110 year old category), Mr. Timmerman shattered the 50-metre and 100-metre freestyle records on Saturday at Pan Am Pool during the 2009 Manitoba Masters Swimming Championship.

“Oddly enough, they’re world records,” Mr. Timmerman told the Winnipeg Free Press Monday. “So that’s something, isn’t it? I don’t know whether I was spry or not — I was nervous as a kitten. But I’m glad that I accomplished something. It was good.”

Anyway, quite an amazing story. Thought I’d share.

We are truly never as old as we think.

Gallows Humor

One Last Cookie

This elderly man was at home, dying in bed.

He smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies baking.

He wanted one last cookie before he died.

He fell out of bed, crawled to the landing, rolled down the stairs, and crawled into the kitchen where his wife was busily baking cookies.

With waning strength he crawled to the table and was just barely able to lift his withered arm to the cookie sheet.

As he grasped a warm, moist, chocolate chip cookie-his favorite kind-his wife suddenly whacked his hand with a spatula.

“Why?” he whispered. “Why’d you do that?”

“They’re for the funeral,” she replied.

——

“Don’t be surprised if you hear someone crack a joke or two down there (the ED)”, my teacher had told me just before I went down for my placement day. “It’s just how they get by.”

Now in my last year, I’ve had some experience with dark humor and health care. If you want a job where you see people daily in some of the worst conditions imaginable (gun shots, head trauma, car accident, heart attack, stroke, stabbings etc.) and you don’t mind the light banter of dark comedy then the ER is for you! Odd? Horrific? Not really, just very human.

Nurse P and Nurse M, just back from dinner, enter the ER just as a man vomits gray, green stuff all over the floor.  Nurse P says off offhandedly as they move to help the man, “I wonder if that cafeteria meatloaf will crawl in here soon and ask for an IV?”

Put human beings in awful situations on a daily basis and, in order to walk through those doors every day, people will find ways to cope.

Also known as gallows humor, it is “a dark or morbid sense of humor unique to people who deal with suffering and tragedy—for example, patients who are terminally ill joking about their illness or death as a means of coping with the illness” (source).

The term comes from “Freud’s (1905) description of prisoner’s making light hearted jokes on the way to the gallows” (Martin, 2007, p 48).

It is used as a method of maintaining one’s sanity in rather dark situations (Martin).

Happy Easter!

Thinking right now of all the nurses and docs on holdiay shift. Hope they get home soon to family and friends.

Blogger Puts the “I” in Individualist Health Care

I’ve just finished reading a litany of responses and a recent post by the Happy Hospitalist, and I want to take a crack at some of the points Happy makes.

The argument/discussion starts when a blogger asks “when it was OK not to take care of patients because of conscience.”

Nurse K’s, who has been around for a while and clearly knows her stuff responds, “maybe we should take care of sick people no matter how they got that way?”

Exactly! OK, reading on…

Happy, on the other hand, argues that it is unrealistic and generally Utopian idea for US health care to take care of everyone. He argues that the concept of free health care, based on the Medicare model, is a sham due to the medical necessity.

Happy argues that Medicare is thus a failing system that is easy to abuse and is costing the US enormous amounts.

“I could make a healthy 65 year old with no medical problems get any test in the world by playing the “medical necessity” documentation game,” posts Happy.

The big decider then between who will be treated and who will not be treated in the US comes down to what things seem to always comes down to…money. Happy essential argues that it is impossible to treat everyone now or indefinitely because there simply isn’t enough money in the system.

After all, argues Happy, why should people be expected to pay for those who choose to do things that harm their own health (smoking, drinking etc.)? And, if the US tries to take care of those people, then there will be no money left for those who may really need the care when the time comes.

The rather dark result of Happy’s argument is that those who take care of themselves deserve care and those who don’t…well don’t, especially since the ones who presumably don’t are the ones who cost so much.

Canada has universal health care that takes care of all of its citizens. Although by no means a perfect system (we do a lot of victim blaming here too), Canada will still care for the COPD patient in room 2 who smoked a pack a day free of charge. Why? Because we all pay into and most of us believe in, a socially supported health system. Still, the financial weight is heavy and the temptation of a privatized and individualistic health system is always present but, ultimately, a failed perspective. Why you ask? Because a health system should be focused on care for all and not just on those who can afford it.

I think that one of the problems in the US then is this incredible focus on individualism. I won’t go into the history, but there are many reasons for American individualism. Still, I think it is also part of why their health system struggles.

Happy posts, “I could care less if someone smokes and drinks themselves to death. It’s their body. Do as they please. Just don’t make me pay for it through my insurance premiums or my Medicare taxes.”

But is it only the individual who is the only culprit here? What about the alcohol companies? What about the cigarette companies?  Also, what about context? Why did that person drink themselves to death? What are the reasons beyond individual choice? Is it so black and white?

People don’t live in a bubble. We are all interconnected with and are constantly changing within our environment. Individual choice is a factor but there are also a web of others that influence a person’s life whether we like to acknowledge it or not. So context is the true reality here….

Joe lost his job because of the current economy, became depressed, has a family history of alcoholism. He drinks until he develops cirrhosis. He can’t afford proper health care. Should we, as a society, still treat him for his chronic and costly health problems as a result of his cirrhosis? After all, wasn’t it he who put the bottle to mouth? What if Joe was your brother/uncle/Dad? Would that change your perspective?

My point is, making the all mighty dollar your decision maker above human life and well being is where the system will ultimately fail. That, along with victim blaming for the system’s woes, are generally misguided principles.

The status of one person’s pocket book should not have more value than another’s life, no matter the perceived context.