"Serious illness doesn't bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host."
--Albert Schweitzer
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Pick Up the Beat
February is American Heart Month. Help female patients reduce their
risk of heart disease and stroke with an innovative, interactive tool
from the American Heart Association. Choose To Move is a free 12-week
plan to boost physical activity. After registering, women receive
motivational information, step-by-step exercise guides and charts to
track their progress-delivered online and via e-mail.
Refer patients to www.choosetomove.org.
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Accessible Anatomy
Give family and friends a glimpse of your world by inviting them to the
California premiere of BODY WORLDS 3 and The Story of the Heart.
Opening at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on March 14,
the exhibit features more than 200 authentic human specimens.
If past is prologue, your guests won't be alone in their oohing and
aahing. Two prior BODY WORLDS exhibits made Science Center history with
a total of more than 930,000 visitors. "[The exhibit] presents the
science of anatomy and important health messages in a way that we know
will encourage further science learning and positively impact the
lifestyle choices of many who see the exhibit," says Jeffrey Rudolph,
Science Center president.
The structure and function of healthy and unhealthy bodies are revealed
through dramatic poses of full-body specimens and detailed
presentations of organs, giving visual credence to your messages about
exercising, eating right and living well.
BODY WORLDS 3 is the result of decades of research by the German
scientist and physician Gunther von Hagens in Plastination, a method of
halting decomposition and preserving the body after death. "The purpose
of Plastination from its very inception was a scientific one, to
educate medical students," he says. "But the interest that laypeople
had in the plastinated specimens inspired me to think of creating
public exhibitions." More info is available at
www.californiasciencecenter.org.
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Top 10 List
In 2007, the California HealthCare Foundation (www.chcf.org) published
research on issues that providers and policymakers face. Here are the
10 documents that drew the most interest:
1. Medi-Cal Facts and Figures: A Look at California's Medicaid Program
2. Perspectives on the Future of Personal Health Records
3. Health Care Costs 101, 2007 Edition
4. California Health Care Market Report 2006
5. The Science of Spread: How Innovations in Care Become the Norm
6. Guide to Health Programs
7. Personal Health Records: Employers Proceed With Caution
8. The Rise of the Hospitalist in California
9. Privacy, Security and the Regional Health Information Organization
10. Financial Health of California Hospitals
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79% of plastic surgery patients were influenced by
television and media.
--Yale University
MD Images
In the months leading up to and during the primary election season, the
American Medical Association's "Voice for the Uninsured" campaign has
been in full swing, making impressions via TV and magazine ads-and
alternative methods. Says Ronald Davis, MD, president of the American Medical Association, about a late 2007 sweep through
Iowa: "[In a meeting], the governor mentioned that he had seen our AMA
billboards about covering the uninsured all over the place. I'm glad
the governor saw our signs--because I used all of my spare time in Des
Moines driving our mobile billboard around the state capital."
