advocacy
Food for Thought: The Patient Side of Medicine
By Abigail Forbes I was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Scoliosis when I was 8 years old. After many years of driving hours away to doctor appointments, the frustration of wearing a back brace as a teenager, and increasing back pain, the decision was finally made for me to undergo spinal correction surgery. The surgeon placed rods on my upper curve during the operation, and unfortunately my lower spinal curve continued to progress over the next year as I grew. I was still hurting, my clothes still ill fitting, and we were starting to question the benefit, if any, I got from the surgery. Frustrated, my parents and I sought out second opinions regarding further treatment; it was a unanimous opinion that my surgeon should have placed rods on both of my thoracic and lumbar curves. We were disappointed with the decision by the first surgeon regarding my surgery, because I...
Food for Thought: Surgery and Public Health
By Nickey Jafari This week, I want to discuss where surgery and public health intersect. First, a little personal background: I took a global public health class with Dr. Debra DeLaet at Drake University for my International Relations major and absolutely fell in love with public health. I highly recommend her textbook, if you are interested in the subject. Since medical school, I have been a passionate supporter of Partners in Health, a community coordinator for their fundraising branch Partners in Health Engage, and a complete and total Dr. Paul Farmer fangirl. I also hope to pursue an MPH between my 3rd and 4th year of medical school. The World Health Organization defines “public health” as “all organized measures to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among the population as a whole.” Sounds pretty important, right? A broad range of issues fall under this umbrella, from access to family...
Food for Thought: President Obama’s SOTU Cancer Promise – Is It Possible?
Below are just two examples of promises President Obama has made to “cure cancer”: 2009 address to Congress: “Our recovery plan … will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American by seeking a cure for cancer in our time.”2015 State of the Union: “For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all”.It is an admirable effort to dedicate oneself to. President Obama’s most recent mention of a promise to “cure cancer” was greatly inspired by Vice President Biden’s tragic loss of his 46-year-old son, Beau, to brain cancer. Unfortunately, this is a loss that millions of Americans know all too well. Cancer is the 2nd leading cause of death in the United States and the American Cancer Society projects there will be 595,690...
Food for Thought: 2016-Time for a Change?
Lately I’ve started noticing a common theme- in public and private conversations, in various parts of the internet, the gathering of momentum. In November of this year I attended the Millin Meeting, the one day annual conference of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI). As it happened, one of the presentations that day was to be on the topic of women in surgery. In her speech, the surgeon covered the history of women surgeons in Ireland, discussed the current challenges of being a woman in surgery, and even gave a shout out to the #Ilooklikeasurgeon movement. Afterwards, a member of the audience asked the speaker about the problem of recruiting and retaining women into the surgical field. She paused for a moment before responding, “Both women AND men reject surgery careers due to problems with work/life balance.” Surgery is no longer for those who decide it’s ok not...
A persistent beat: motherhood and urban gun violence
By Stephanie Bonne My newsfeed is punctuated by the screaming of anger, fear and rhetoric. An argument articulated in bursts of 140 characters. An argument that cannot be won. The ebb and flow of the “conversation” about gun violence bubbles up every so often, every time there is a mass shooting event. We discuss how to prevent events like this, and trauma surgeons like me or others who work in emergency care bring up the same point: That this is not just a problem of mass shooting. This happens every day, across America, in an epidemic of gun violence. A public health problem that needs to be addressed as such, with money, research and resources. I have worked in trauma centers in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago and now Newark. Gritty, urban places where the tempo of gun violence is unrelenting and audible. Eight, 10, 12 gunshot victims a night is...
A Family Affair
By Linda Farkas This Thanksgiving has given me much to reflect on; myself changing jobs, my husband and I moving across country, one daughter completing her first year out of college and living in New York City, another daughter graduating from college and considering her next step, and a third daughter deciding on where to attend college so she can change the world. I find these transitions within my family to be gratifying and exciting! This is also the first Thanksgiving after many years in which I have “no patients” as I transition to my new job. In previous years, in the 2-4 weeks prior to Thanksgiving, I would spend time determining recipes, finding time to shop, and figuring out where we would be for dinner. In all these years, I would practice “traditional” Thanksgiving endeavors. But this was also the time of year I encouraged all of my patients...
Advocacy for Our Patients and Ourselves
by: Amalia Cochran, MD, MA, FACS, FCCM How many of you have written a letter or sent an email to your member of Congress about an issue? How many of you have called your member of Congress’ office? How many of you have visited your member of Congress office, either in the home district or in DC? How many of you aren’t sure this stuff matters? Does it really make a difference when you call or write or visit to discuss the SGR or the zero-day global or ongoing support for trauma systems? I’m here to tell you that it does matter. Our Senators and our Representatives are listening- maybe not they themselves directly, but they are using their staff members as their eyes and ears to review those emails and letters and calls. They are interested in what you, as a constituent, have to say. When you are able...
Engagement through Advocacy
by: Amy Liepert, MD “Oh my! You look too young to be a surgeon!” This was not exclaimed to me (this time) by a patient, although I have often heard that. As I am nearly 2 years out of my fellowship training and not having taken significant time off, my age is not much of a secret. However, instead of my response this time being an assurance that indeed I am old enough, and I am older than I look, as it might have been to a patient or family member, this time I responded differently. “With all due respect Lieutenant Governor, YOU do not appear old enough to be Lieutenant Governor!” With engagement in advocacy you never know what chance meeting, connection or opportunity might arise to put you in the position to influence and impact the care of your patients at a legislative level. While participating as part...
A place of our own
by Amalia Cochran, MDApparently there are a number of men who, upon hearing about a women surgeon’s activity will state, “We don’t get to have a men in surgery group!” This statement is both true and untrue. While it would probably be considered politically incorrect to have a formal “men in surgery organization”, it can easily be argued that academic surgery remains the “men in surgery” club. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of women in surgery residencies increased from 24% to 37% of trainees, breaking that 33% number often associated with achieving “critical mass” for any non-majority group. However, in the ranks of academic surgery in 2012, women constituted 21% of surgery faculty, and women are apparently stalled as 9% of full professors in surgery. This paucity of women in academic surgery does matter, both in terms of availability of role models for our residents and students, and in...
Lean In: Book Review & Discussion (Part Three)
by Sophia Kim McKinley, Callie Thompson, MD, and Minerva Romero Arenas, MD, MPHChapter 8: Make your partner a real partner (Callie)By nature, women are charged with carrying the child, birthing the child, and feeding the child (if one so chooses), resulting in an uneven distribution of work between a couple from conception. This chapter discusses some of the author’s personal struggles with being a new parent and the division of labor and responsibility in her relationship. Data show that in heterosexual couples, when both work outside the home, the women does 30-40% more of the childcare and housework, and as recently as 2009, only 9% of dual-earner marriages said they split the work evenly. As a surgeon, I would suggest that this needs to be acknowledged and discussed prior to starting a family with a spouse/significant other. When a couple is discussing having children, there can be a lot of...
