News EditionBecause these news bulletins qualify more for the wierd news section than for medical tourism. First up is Lululemon Athletica, a company which manufactures 'yoga wear', including eco-friendly yoga mats and a lot of other kinds of wear. Seems they're sponsoring 'Yoga on the Hill' sessions in Ottawa, Canada. (more...)
Advocating for Better Continuing Clinical Education Programs and Clinical Exchange Programs
In the hottest months of summer the shimmering of a clear, blue pool of water can seem like the best part of the season. Unfortunately, swimming pools can harbor strains of bacteria that can ruin your summer vacation if you're not careful. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has designated the week of May 19 - 25, 2008 as Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week. The event is designed to draw attention to the potential dangers posed by improperly maintained swimming pools and the importance of healthy swimming practices.
Jumps Onto Medical Tourism BandwagonRandy Southerland, writing for the Atlanta Business Chronicle ( subsrciption required ), reports about the fledgling efforts of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce in making Atlanta the location of choice for cutting edge medical treatment, for both international health (more...)
Classic post: Shortage of primary care threatens health care systemThe following op-ed was published on March 13th, 2008 in the USA Today.
Crippling health care bills, long emergency room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.
Surveys suggest that health care is a top domestic priority in the presidential election, and there is no lack of ideas on how to fix our system. Republicans favor using market forces and increasing the burden of health care costs on patients. Democrats, however, focus on covering the uninsured. Sadly, the candidates are missing the bigger picture. We need to address the fundamental issue at the root of our problems: the primary care shortage.
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Your Brain Performance Index (BPI) is how you measure and track your cognitive performance, and compare your ability in one area to another. All active Lumosity users have a BPI. You can check yours in the My History section, or if you’re not already a member you can sign-up and get your BPI by playing the brain training games.
An increase in BPI indicates improvement. An increase of more than 200 points represents a substantial improvement of at least 1 standard deviation. Remember that BPI is a way to track your own personal progress - it is not intended as a way to compare yourself to other people.
The Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS) invites paper proposals for its eleventh annual meeting on March 6-7, 2009 in Birmingham, Alabama. The meeting will be hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
SAHMS welcomes papers on the history of medicine and science, broadly construed to encompass historical, literary, anthropological, philosophical and sociological approaches to health care, including race and gender studies. While some sessions will relate to the American South, SAHMS is open to a wide range of topics. Past meetings have included ancient, medieval, modern European, African and Asian presentations. Scholars from all areas and disciplines are welcome. MD/PhD students may submit works in progress and should indicate their graduate student status.
Breast Cancer Prevention
In Australia, one woman in eleven will get breast cancer, a disease that kills more Australian women than any other form of cancer; 25 new cases are diagnosed every day. Genetic factors play a major role in only a minority of these (only 1-5% of all breast cancers are due to an inherited mutation); the greatest risks come from hormonal, lifestyle, dietary and environmental influences, which to a large degree are controllable and/or avoidable.
Maggie Mahar is an award winning journalist and author. A frequent contributor to THCB, her work has appeared in the New York Times, Barron's and Institutional Investor. She is the author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Why Healthcare Costs So Much, an examination of the economic forces driving the healthcare system. A fellow at the Century Foundation, Maggie is also the author the increasingly influential HealthBeat blog, one of our favorite healthcare reads, where this piece first appeared.
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