Insurance.  Oh the quandary we are in.  Insurance is a God-send for a crisis and there is no other country I would rather be in for a crisis whether it be due to a severe infection, trauma, heart attack, strokes, or any other crisis.  However, how are we for chronic diseases though or the average day to day? We ranked 34th in the world per JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) 2014 for quality of health care systems in the world! We are number 1 for Infant and Maternal Mortality. We have to realize that insurance is a system set up for a crisis of your health care but not wellness. With the ever shortening visit to your doctor (often 5-15 minutes), we have to consider what can be done during that time.  Doctor's have a check list of quality care measures to complete to qualify for future bonuses or lose them if they do not complete them.  Sounds great until you realize that your lack of sleep, digestive issues, quality of nutrition, exercise, fina...

Who longs for the days of the family doctor having time to spend with you and actually listen to your issues?  How about those home visits you remember as a child when you were too sick and the doctor actually came to your home?  Those were the romantic days of family medicine and what many of us dream of when we sign up for medical school. These days, thanks to corporations and insurance companies, the clinic has become a patient mill where patients see the doctors for 8 minutes to squeeze in their concerns.  It isn't the doctor's choice to do this but they are owned by companies dictating their schedules.    More and more insurance companies and especially Medicare are dictating medical choices and doctors have to choose the path of least resistance to survive so they give up the fight.  The patients become the diabetic with the ulcer or the sickly kid instead of Mr. Johnson who has diabetes and suffering from an ulcer and little Jay who is having recur...

I am thankful for Western medicine for acute issues.  It is life saving and life prolonging many times.  Thankful for everyone who works in a hospital all the way down to the person who cleans the room as this can be just as important as the medicine they get.  However, I am not thankful for a system that tries to squeeze blood from a rock.  To save the almighty dollar, it seems every hospital is short staffed for the true needs of good patient care.  Saving this almighty dollar sets us all up for failure and risk and contributes to the statistic in the JAMA article about western medicine being the third largest killer of patients behind heart disease and cancer. Due to shortages, a lot of mistakes are made.  I hear so many cringe worthy stories from my patients of the wrong medicines being given or the wrong doses given.  I have seen a few die due to medical errors.  None of us are perfect and it is terrifying to have a medical error or ove...

My grandpa Virgil died a few years back.  He had 9 lives for sure but one time was more due to imposed dietary restrictions. This guy was hardcore.  He survived a ruptured abdominal aneurysm that should have killed him.   He had survived a dense stroke many years ago that affected his speech and the use of the right side of his body.  That slowed him down but he found creative things to do to still be productive.  He was an illiterate genius with a third grade education who was tough as nails and could fix anything .  He finally got diagnosed with lung cancer near the end and had broken his hip.  This starts the part of the story I want to share. He was found on the floor at the front door when he broke his hip waiting on someone to check on him.  Plug for lifeline here for anyone left alone that is at risk for breaking hips even if someone checks on them regularly.  The typical story I have been trained is that once a feeble grandparent b...