I love to have meetings that require patient involvement. They range from cooking demonstrations to talent shows, fashion shows and patient panels. The exciting part for me is that I have minimal preparation to do. As for the support group I am sure they are glad to hear from their peers from time to time. I have had a number of patient panels which feature patients from 6 weeks to 10 years post-op. The support group audience is made up of a wide range of new and seasoned patients ranging from 2 weeks to 10 years out of surgery. The questions regard many topics from what was the pain like after surgery to asking if any member of the panel ever regretted having surgery. From my perspect
A few years ago I wrote an article titled, “It Must Be the Patient’s Fault”. Several issues were bugging me at the time predominately being that we frequently blame our patients for problems they might be having. We quickly would ask if the ‘problem patient’ was taking their vitamins and minerals, were they exercising and eating right, were they coming to support group meetings, having regular check ups, in essence where they following our rules. If we could find the patient not being compliant then obviously whatever was going wrong was the patient’s fault. What was and is still obvious to me is that we don’t want to be blamed for any problems no matter what they are regarding our patien
Everyone who knows me knows there are two words I will always hate to hear and they are “I can’t”. Yes, I may just well be one of those positive thinkers you would hate to be around but that is the way I was raised. I can still hear my mother say, “You can do anything if you put your mind to it.” So am I successful at everything I try? Of course not but I can always look at whatever I attempted to do and say, “Well at least I learned something.” Whether it worked out or not I could always look back and say I tried. My “I CAN” philosophy has always been built on 5 main principles: 1. How badly could I screw up? 2. It won’t kill me if I am not successful. 3. What would my back up plan be i