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When I was going through medical school, I often used a handheld device (at that time a personal digital assistant) in the clinical setting to hold references (eg drug references, disease references, procedures). It was much easier than carrying around a bag of reference books and quicker than looking through the book indexes. These handheld devices were and still are able to find drug interactions. Its a much more efficient and safer way to practice. Now, in clinical practice, I just use a laptop to reference the same information as I am much more stationary and not running around from shift to shift. 

I do agree with some of the comments below that information is not wisdom. I do also think that when one is learning information to problem solve, and its immediately accessible, disparate quantums can be pulled together to come to a new insight. This occurs over and over in the clinical setting, especially during medical school or residency. A patient may present with a keynote symptoms and the physician can then look that up that particular symptom and find the disease or diseases that have that symptom.  

On the other hand, I did have a supervising doctor on a clinical rounds tell me to put down my handheld device and even my pen and paper and focus more on observing the patient, "look, listen, and smell." I still remember that lessen, and at every medical encounter, I spend time just observing. 

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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The idea for Portlandia makes me think of the movie Singles. How much of that movie influenced the development of Portlandia?

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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My Parents also recently retired and they are 1.5 years away from being 65 years old. They are very concerned about being forced to take medicare. Their physicians, who have cared for them for over 20 years, are not going to provide care for them when they start on medicare.

27 years each (54 years total) of public school teaching and this is the "thank you" and care they get for teaching so many children. It is sad that our society cannot take of people during their retirement. At least take care of their health. Medicare system is not working.

My parents have also found relief for their own health concerns and problems through alternative care.  They find if they take care of health in a truly preventative way, their health also improved. At this time, conventional "preventative" medicine is MAINLY a disease identification and symptom managment and not proactive. Alternative medicine moves beyond just identifying problems and symptoms and move people to wellness and health!

Hopefully any new healthcare and health insurance reform will include this type of truly preventative medicine. This type of healthcare is severely needed in our country.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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An ER doc would also NOT consult a primary care MD family physician in these situations either.  Only ER MDs would be adequately trained to handle these emergent situations. Even ER docs have to refer out to specialized surgeons in some cases. NPs, PAs, family physician MDs and NDs are all adequately trained in primary care management, drug prescribing and appropriate referral.  Each profession has and knows its limits and abilities, and when it needs to refer out.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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Is David Walls claiming that NDs don't have adequate pharmacological training? When we compare NDs training to that of nurse practitioners or physician assistants? NPs and PAs both, until recently, had more prescribing rights than NDs. A PA is trained in 26 months (a little over two years), a NP is trained in 24 months (two years), a Naturopathic physician is trained in 48 months (four years) in primary care and precribing pharmaceuticals (numbers are from the OHSU and NCNMs websites). NDs have double the training in primary care.  Dr. Walls is limiting not only the whole Osteopathic profession's ability to work in a synergistic manner with NDs, he is also limiting all patients' acessibility to truly wholistic healthcare with his uninformed views.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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