Surviving the Medical Meltdown (38 page)

When you list medications, do not list all your vitamins or supplements. You can tell that to someone when and if you are admitted to the hospital, but it is not a critical piece of emergency info. Do list hormones, though.

When you list allergies, list only those that are true allergies, not simply side effects. For example, if you have been given morphine in the past and became nauseated that is
not
an allergy. If you had itching or facial swelling or shortness of breath, that
is
an allergy.

We don’t really care about every little toenail surgery unless that is why you are in the emergency room. As physicians, we want to know about body-altering surgeries. Have you had your appendix out? Heart stints? Renal transplant? We
don’t need to know about your childhood broken bone.

If your emergency contact person is not a blood relative, be sure they have some legal note that they can be given your medical information. It is a good idea to have a medical power of attorney, if you can trust that person to act in your best interest. Do not give power over your life and death to someone who might want your estate more than you!

Also, write on the top of the form the date of latest update. That way if there are conflicts of information on different summary sheets, your doctor knows the latest version.

NOTES

CHAPTER 1: HOW WE GOT HERE

1
. William Bruce Cameron,
Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking
(New York: Random House, 1963), 13.

2
.
Lancet Oncology
8 (2007): 784–96.

3
. Public Health Agency of Canada, “Organized Breast Cancer Screening Programs in Canada: Report on Program Performance in 2001–2002.”

4
. Jeremy Laurance, “Dialysis Shortage Exposes Failings of NHS,”
Independent
(UK), January 14, 2003.

5
. A. A. Ray et al., “Waiting for Cardiac Surgery: Results of a Risk-Stratified Queuing Process,”
Circulation
104 (2001): 92–98.

6
. Michael Pearson, “The VA’s troubled history,”
CNN Politics
, May 30, 2014,
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/23/politics/va-scandals-timeline/
.

7
. Craig Harris and Rob O’Dell, “Phoenix VA gave out $10 mil in bonuses in past 3 years,”
AZ Central
, June 17, 2014,
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/06/17/phoenix-va-gave-mil-bonuses-last-years/10653263/
.

8
. Sarah Kliff, “Screwed-up bonus payments are at the heart of the VA scandal,” Vox, May 30, 2014,
http://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5762482/health-incentives-gone-wrong
.

9
. “A Survey of America’s Physicians: Practice Patterns and Perspectives,” Physicians Foundation, September 2012,
http://www.physiciansfoundation.org/uploads/default/Physicians_Foundation_2012_Biennial_Survey.pdf
.

10
. Pamela Wible, MD, “What I’ve learned from saving physicians from suicide,”
KevinMD
, a MedPage Today blog, May 27, 2013,
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/05/learned-saving-physicians-suicide.html
.

CHAPTER 2: THE COMING DOCTOR SHORTAGE

1
. As an orthopaedic surgeon, I cannot resist recounting a little history. You will see we modern-day bone doctors referred to as orthopaedic or orthopedic surgeons – with or without the
a
. With the
a
, orthopaedic in Latin means “straight child,” and that was the original meaning of the term when coined by Nicholas Andry in 1741. To spell it without the
a
means, in Latin, “straight foot” – and we are not just concerned with feet, so I pedantically insist on the
a
.

2
. Ronald T. Libby,
The Criminalization of Medicine; America’s War on Doctors
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), 5, 9.

3
. Personal communication with Jane Orient, MD, at the AAPS meeting in Denver Colorado 2013.

4
. “Surgeon Reports to Prison; Government Sends Message,” Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, December 11, 2012,
http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/surgeon_reports_to_prison_government_sends_message_states_aaps/
.

5
. “American College of Surgeons, “The Surgical Workforce in the United States: Profile and Recent Trends,” 2010,
http://www.acshpri.org/documents/ACSHPRI_Surgical_Workforce_in_US_apr2010.pdf
.

CHAPTER 3: WHY YOUR DOCTOR IS OUT OF DATE

1
. Casey Luskin, “Is There a ‘Consensus’ in Science? Remembering the Late Michael Crichton,” Evolution News and Views, November 14, 2008,
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/is_there_a_consensus_in_scienc013351.html
.

2
. Gordon C. S. Smith and Jill P. Pell, “Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials,”
BMJ
327 (2003): 1459–61;
http://www.neonatology.org/pdf/ParachuteUseRPCT.pdf
.

CHAPTER 4: THE FINAL GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER

1
. Perry Chiaramonte, “High cost of Common Core has states rethinking the national education standards,” Fox News, February 05, 2014,
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/05/number-states-backing-out-common-core-testing-maryland-schools-low-on-funding/
.

2
. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, “Our Totalitarian Regulatory Bureaucracy,”
Mises Daily
, July 26, 2010,
http://mises.org/daily/4585
.

3
. Bob Beauprez, “The Telescope: The Nationalization of the Banks,”
A Line of Sight
, July 19, 2011,
http://alos.thinkrootshq.com/policy/
the-telescope-the-nationalization-of-the-banks.

4
. See “Public Law 111 – 148 – Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” on the website of the U.S. Government Printing Office,
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ148/content-detail.html
.

5
. Clyde Wayne Crews Jr.,
Ten Thousand Commandments 2012: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State
, Competitive Enterprise Institute,
http://cei.org/10kc
.

6
. The Physicians Foundation,
A Survey of America’s Physicians: Practice Patterns and Perspectives
(2012),
http://www.physiciansfoundation.org/uploads/default/Physicians_Foundation_2012_Biennial_Survey.pdf
, 11.

7
. Kathryn Serkes, “Disheartened Doctors, Patient Problems: AAPS Biannual Survey of Physicians on Medicare and Patients’ Access to Care,”
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons
8, no. 4 (Winter 2003),
http://www.jpands.org/vol8no4/serkes.pdf
.

8
. Govind Persad, Alan Wertheimer, and Ezekiel A. Immanuel, “Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions,”
Lancet
373, no. 9661 (2009): 423–31.

9
. Yuri N. Maltsev, “What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us,”
Mises Daily
, June 22, 2012,
http://mises.org/daily/3650
.

10
. Michael P. Coleman et al., “Cancer survival in five continents: a worldwide population-based study,”
Lancet Oncology
9, no. 8 (August 2008): 730–56,
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/issue/vol9no8/PIIS1470-2045(08)X7090-1
.

CHAPTER 5: WHAT THE MELTDOWN WILL LOOK LIKE

1
. Chad Terbune, “Closure of three Southland hospitals may be part of a trend,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 3, 2013,
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/03/business/la-fi-pacific-hospitals-closing-20130404
.

2
. Suzanne Dion, RN, former Montreal nurse in personal communication to the author in 2005.

3
.
Pogue
is a pejorative military term for a bureaucrat – someone who pushes paper but who does not share in the stress and risk of combat as a front-line soldier. This term desperately needs adoption into civilian life.

4
. P. Sullivan, MD, oncologist, in personal communication to the author in 2007.

CHAPTER 8: DIET: WHAT SCIENCE REALLY TELLS US

1
. From the motion picture
Vanilla Sky
, directed by Cameron Crowe (Paramount, 2001).

2
. Doug A. Scott, “Serum Vitamin B
₁₂
and Blood Cell Values in Vegetarians,”
Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism
26, no. 4 (1982): 209–16.

3
. H-X Wang et al., “Vitamin B(12) and folate in relation to the development of Alzheimer’s disease,”
Neurology
56, no. 9 (2001): 1188–94.

4
. C. Lord et al., “Dietary animal protein intake: association with muscle mass index in older women,”
Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging
11, no. 5 (2007): 383–87.

5
. T. A. Outila et al., “Dietary intake of vitamin D in premenopausal, healthy vegans was insufficient to maintain concentrations of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and intact parathyroid hormone within normal ranges during the winter in Finland,”
Journal of the American Dietetic Association
100, no. 4 (2000): 434–41.

6
. M. Ureshima et al., “Randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
91, no. 5 (2010):1255–60.

7
. Federico Carbone and Fabrizio Montecucco, “The Role of the Intraplaque Vitamin D System in Atherogenesis,”
Scientifica
, November 18, 2013,
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/scientifica/2013/620504/
.

8
. T. Shoji et al, “Lower risk for cardiovascular mortality in oral alpha-hydroxy vitamin D
₃
users in a haemodialysis population,”
Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplant
19, no. 1 (January 2004): 179–84,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/pubmed/14671054
.

9
. C. F. Garland et al., “Breast Cancer Risk according to Serum 25 Hydroxy Vitamin D; Meta-analysis of Dose Response” (abstract), American Association of Cancer Research Annual Meeting (2008).

10
. Inge Everaert et al., “Vegetarianism, female gender and increasing age, but not
CNDP1
genotype, are associated with reduced muscle carnosine levels in humans,”
Springer Link
40, no. 4 (April 2011): 1221–29.

11
. “Serum sex hormones and endurance performance after a lacto-ovo vegetarian and a mixed diet,”
Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise
24, no. 11 (1992):1290–97.

12
. Lierre Keith,
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2009), 92. Similarly, a short article by Dr. Stephen Byrnes, titled “Myths & Truths About Vegetarianism” and posted on the website of the Weston A. Price Foundation, outlines the perils and mistaken thinking about vegetarianism. See
http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/myths-of-vegetarianism/
.

13
. Gary Taubes,
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
, (New York: Anchor, 2008).

14
. See Brian S. Peskin and Robert Jay Rowen,
PEO Solution: Conquering Cancer, Diabetes and Heart Disease with Parent Essential Oils
(Pinnacle, 2015), available at
http://www.peo-solution.com/
. See also
http://www.peskinprotocol.com/supplements/peos.htm
.

15
. Patrick L. McGeer, Michael Schulzer, and Edith G. McGeer, “Arthritis and anti-inflammatory agents as possible protective factors for Alzheimer’s disease,”
Neurology
47, no. 2 (August 1996): 425–32.

16
. R. M. Murray, J. G. Greene, and J. H. Adams, “Analgesic Abuse and Dementia,”
Lancet
298, no. 7718 (July 21, 1971).

17
. G. R. N. Jones, “Causes of Alzheimer’s disease: paracetamol (acetaminophen) today? Amphetamines tomorrow?”
Medical Hypotheses
56, no. 1 (January 2001): 121–23,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11133268
.