Category: Medical

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Scary Times in Sports

When my brother was in high school, he was adamant that he wanted to join the football team. My parents were very worried about that. (Keep in mind, this was back in the early 1970’s.) They had heard in recent years how sometimes an athelete that seems to be in perfect health sometimes suffers a massive cardiac arrest in the middle of the field, and dies before ever making it to the hospital! Sure, the schools insisted on each of the kids getting a medical clearance before playing, but at that point in time, they did not even do any kind of diagnostic testing to make sure that the kids did not have any weird heart conditions that had been overlooked by previous physicals.

Times certainly have changed since then! There are entire businesses, such as Wimbledon Heath Partners, that are dedicated to sports medicine. Not just how to fix injuries once they happen, but to run tests to make sure that weird genetic conditions don’t raise their ugly heads in the middle of practice, or a competition. Sports medicine has come a very long way. I am interested to keep seeing whatever happens in the near future regarding American football and concussions. I know that new helmets have been designed, but I have a feeling that American football might just start suffer from this very serious hazard. I think that fewer parents will be giving permission for their kids to play it in school, and that will eventually lead to fewer professionals down the road.

As for my brother, well, he did join the football team, but he came down with mono during the school year, and ended up benched for most of the football season. That broke his heart, but I think that my parents were secretly relieved that he did not spend a lot of time on the field!

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Anticipation is the Worst

As much as I hate going the dentist, I am OK with it after I get there. My new dentist is very good and a nice guy. He does not hurt me at all and is very considerate of my comfort level. But I still get freaked out when I know I have to go, and I know I have to go on Monday morning. So I have all weekend to worry.

I think just knowing that I have an appointment on a certain day just adds to my stress. I sure wish we could just walk in and have a chance to get treatment instead of having to make appointments. But I know that will never happen unless I end up marrying a dentist.

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Hard to Be One Handed

Silly me has hurt her arm. Well, hurt my wrist is more accurate. I was in a hurry, I slipped on the porch steps and I fell. I can’t even blame it on anyone else by my own silly fault. I don’t think it is broken, but it sure hurts.

I think I will keep it wrapped tight in an elastic bandage today and if it still hurts this badly in the morning then I might try to see a doctor about it. I just don’t want to waste anyone’s time and money if all I did was sprain my wrist. Sure, it’s hard to do anything around here with just one hand. But a sprained wrist takes it time healing up and as long as it is not actually broken, there is nothing I can do except keep it wrapped and deal with it for a week.

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Sick ickys

A virus and the flue are going around.

It seems so many of my friends and family have come down with this stuff. Melancholy, headache, flu like symptoms…it’s a miserable feeling.

I know this, because I have come down with it too. It seems to come and go. Not good. Not good at all. To everyone who is experiencing this, feel better sooner than soon. My thoughts and healing energy are with you.

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Be Careful With Aspirin

I bet most families have a bottle of aspirin in their house somewhere. I know a lot of people prefer other pain relievers, like Advil or Tylenol, but I still think that people keep a little bottle of aspirin in their medicine cabinet. It’s a carryover from the old days when there were not many alternatives.

One of the problems with aspirin is that it thins your blood. So if you are taking aspirin for a toothache and then the dentist has to pull the tooth, sometimes he can’t do it right away because of the risk of excessive bleeding. This happened to a friend of mine. If he had not been taking aspirin for several days before seeing the dentist, he could have had the tooth pulled and on the road to recovery. But since he had taken so much, the dentist sent him home for 4 more days of pain AND orders to not take any pain relievers. Then he went back and got the tooth pulled. That was a long painful ordeal and I did not know that aspirin would have contributed to the problem.

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The comfort and style of scrubs

After previously working in the medical field I got used to wearing scrub sets every day. Even now that I no longer work in the hospital, I still will wear them around the house, because to me they are comfortable and actually feel like an old friend, since they were my main attire for years. Even my daughters like to borrow my tops now and then because of the comfort of them.

My oldest daughter will soon be going back into the medical field herself, and I told her that she could have my newer scrubs but since I’m very short, I knew the pants would be way too short of her. I decide to surprise her with some sets of scrubs from http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ who carries a great line of medical field clothes. I’ve had many people reccomend this company, and from what I have heard, the price is great and also the styles are really nice looking. It’s not like the old days, when scrubs were the basic blue or green. Now there are different prints and colors to choose from.

My daughter is going to also need a few white lab coats also, so for a surprise gift I’ll be buying her those. She isn’t expecting it, and was sort of worried about her finances, so this will be something she doesn’t have to fret about. She’ll have new clothes to work in and I’m proud of her for getting her new job!

 

 

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The weather is about to change

For the last few days, the weather hasn’t been bad for this time of year. In fact, it was nearly 60 degrees when I took the dog for a walk this morning very early. But I could smell the change in the air. I wish the kids would start wearing their heavier coats instead of just hoodies, to school. It bothers me a great deal, and also if they get sick, there is the doctors visit and the bill to worry about.

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Migraines or what

Lately I’ve been getting terrible headaches. I seldom ever got headaches, let alone ones that others have described as migraines. But for about two months now, I’ve had headaches that put me right to bed for hours on end. I had some tests done last week and haven’t heard anything yet. Hopefully the doctor will figure out what is happening.

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8 Interesting Career Paths in Health Policy

Health policy is a dynamic field with many career options. Because health issues are occurring in greater numbers and in new demographics, health policy jobs and related careers have experienced significant growth in recent years. Here are 8 interesting career paths you could embark upon to work with health policy and some of the things you might be doing.

Research

Health policy careers may have you working in a research capacity. Creating or evaluating health policies requires that you know what you are talking about when it comes to health so a great deal of research is needed. In fact, your job may revolve around doing research related to health policies and health issues.

Advocacy

You may very well advocate for better health policies. If health policies were already perfect then they would not require attention and there wouldn’t be quite so many shortcomings in healthcare systems. Because this is not the case, some career paths in health policy lead you to advocate for improvements in health policy and in the implementation of health policy.

Education

Those working in the field of health policy often work to educate others in health policy. If people do not know and understand what health policy is then they cannot fully take advantage of its attempts to better serve them. Educating everyone in the ways that health policies serve them and the ways in which health policies need to be improved can help to make sure that health policy does what it is supposed to in the way of helping people and that it grows to accommodate new needs as they are identified.

Planning

When you work in health policy then you may be the one planning out health policy as well as the one planning out how the good intentions of a health policy will be carried out in the real world. A policy cannot do everything by itself so you could be someone who contributes to the plan of action that makes sure that the goals of health policy are reached.

Cooperation

You may be working to help different groups cooperate to accomplish health policy goals. Whenever two groups come together to work toward the same goal there can be friction and disagreements about how to best accomplish that goal. You may be called upon to help groups cooperate so that healthy policy goals are reached.

Training

You may even be involved in training others. Not everyone takes the time to understand health policy or to make sure that it is carried out so you may train others in this field.

Connecting

Health policy careers can mean connection people to the resources that they need. When you work in the health policy field your efforts may not stop with creating or evaluating a health policy. You may have to monitor its implementation and work directly with people to connect them to the health services that they require.

8 Interesting Career Paths In Health Policy

  1. Health policy advisor
  2. Health policy manager
  3. Health policy analyst
  4. Health policy research economist
  5. Health policy researcher
  6. Health policy associate
  7. Health policy specialist
  8. Health policy consultant

M. Ellen really enjoys sharing blog posts with students who are curious about what it takes to earn a masters degree in health policy.

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Broken bones

My oldest daughter was at her in laws house, that is on the lake and from what she said everything was going well, they were having a great time, but had to warn the kids to be really careful going up and down the deck steps while they were wet, since they were slippery. What did she do? Went up the steps, slid in water that was on the deck and tumbled down. She broke her arm from above the elbow to just under her arm pit. I feel so sorry for her since we’ve had pure record breaking heat, her arm is in a cast from under arm to wrist and of course she is in a great deal of pain. Besides, oldest child or not, she is still my “Baby”. She goes to the surgeon again in three days to see how it’s doing. So far it’s not healing normally and we are so worried she’ll have to have surgery, as he has suggested.