Talking About Health; Why Health Communication Matters

What might happen when a pharmacist uses a conscience clause?

January 16, 2012

A conscience clause — when might a pharmacist feel conflicted about filling a prescription? The most commonly discussed event is birth control. Birth control pills, the morning after pill… these medications cause feelings of conflict between values related to pro-life and anti-abortion, and dispensing the medications.

The store, Target, supports a pharmacist’s rights not to fill these prescriptions. However, a pharmacist must direct a consumer to another Target store where the prescription can be filled. I can find no research that has been done to see how such conversations might take place or what happens when — as in the town where I live — there is one Target store. I don’t know if there is more than one pharmacist there. I don’t know if any of them object to filling these prescriptions. But if they do, what happens? How would I know? Who would tell me?

Grammie, were you that girl who played ‘boy’ games with the boys?

August 2, 2011

Yes, Grace… I was. We were painting the swingset and ‘chit-chatting’ as my granddaughter likes to call it. Being a baby-boomer has its perks as I have this long view of such matters as ‘what girls and boys do’ and some opinions about how it affects our health…all the way from bone density based on early childhood through developmental years of activity versus inactivity to body image and weight. Or so I thought.

Why is it that the same divisions that seemed like we worked through in the past still remain? The boys always played together at recess…something fun like kickball or chase or even just ‘let’s go expore the other side of the playground.’ The girls always played together at recess…something like ‘let’s catch up on who’s wearing what’ [like we couldn’t all see that and who cares…] and ‘let’s play house’…

Much to my surprise, Grace told me as we were painting all about how she is the girl who crosses over to play with the boys. I knew she played sports at recess because shopping for clothes for Grace means buying something pretty and pink but something–like she is wearing to drive the tractor with Granddad–that she can hang upside down in on any number of jungle gym type toys… skorts–those marvelous crossovers between shorts and skirts are the perfect ticket and have only gotten much cuter over the years. She told me that her best friend is a boy. She was the only girl invited to his birthday party. She told me how there is one boy who sometimes plays with the girls…when they need a ‘daddy’ for their household.

Interesting, I told her. I was the one rolling down hills, climbing trees, and well–being a ‘tomboy’ when I was growing up, too. “A tomboy? What’s that,” Grace asked me.

Well, at least that has changed…

What did Dr. Besser say about the HPV vaccine?

February 1, 2011

Today, on ‘Good Morning America,’ Dr. Besser–the show’s medical expert and reporter–talked about recommendations for vaccines that older teens should get. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/video/new-vaccine-guidelines-for-older-children-teens-12810738 He recommended three vaccines, including one to prevent whooping cough,meningococcal booster to prevent meningitis, and a hepatitis B vaccine.

Dr. Besser was talking about the American Academy of Pediatrics new recommendations for older teens. The Academy recommended other vaccines as well, including the HPV vaccine. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_ParentingResource/vaccinate-child-time/story?id=12806514&page=1

Interestingly, Dr. Besser did NOT recommend this vaccine…for teen boys specifically, saying that he wouldn’t, “get it for my sons.” When asked why, he said for boys, it is a preventive for genital warts which are he noted “easily treatable.” When pushed for more information, he added, “It’s very expensive.”

Interesting. We have discussed HPV in this forum before and in the past week, had quite a discussion relating to HPV. http://whyhealthcommunication.com/whc_blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=376&action=edit That discussion built on an earlier one. http://whyhealthcommunication.com/whc_blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=33&action=edit

It is important to remember the limitations of the vaccine for females and cervical cancer prevention noted on the National Cancer Institute’s site, “The vaccine tested in this study has several limitations, noted NCI’s Hildesheim. For one thing, the vaccine offers no protection against other types of HPV that can also cause cervical cancer. In addition, it’s unknown whether the vaccine’s protection against HPV-16 is long-lasting. Finally, it does not prevent HPV-16 infections already present at the time of vaccination from progressing to cancer.” http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/results/summary/2002/cervical-cancer-vaccine1102

Let’s not forget an important message then… still get a pap test as an early detection strategy for cervical cancer…

What did Dr. OZ say about stress today?

January 24, 2011

Dr. Oz talked about heart attacks on his show today. He emphasized things we can do to manage our risk for ourselves. He talked about the risk for women as well as men. One of the issues that he emphasized was ‘stress.’ He noted that stress is a big contributor to heart disease. He has talked about this in terms of our diet before http://whyhealthcommunication.com/whc_blog/?p=328 I have talked about Dr. Oz referring to stress before on this blog .http://whyhealthcommunication.com/whc_blog/?p=236

This time, I want to applaud the very concrete suggestions that Dr. Oz gave us for handling stress. He said, “Have two social conversations each day.” And, “Have one social outing each week.” This is very useful for us. How often do we find ourselves stressed with feelings that there is ‘no wait out.’ Then we talk to a friend or a colleague about a new movie coming out, or our passion for a sport, or our love for our children. Even five minutes, and some of that stress melts away. And, yes, as impossible as it seems when we feel stressed, having a social outing–a walk at the city park or in the mall when it is too cold outdoors, lunch at Subway’s or each other’s home, or going to see that new movie–everything looks and feels different afterward. So thumbs up to Dr. Oz for concrete ideas that we all can do to manage our stress…

What does Barbra Streisand’s new book have to do with communicating about women’s health?

breastexam02 November 18, 2010

Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford appeared on Oprah’s show this week…the first time they appeared together. And Barbra talked about her new book, My passion for design. She told us all about how some of the proceeds will be used for women’s heart health. She is supporting Cedars-Sinai Women’s Heart Center. You can read more about the center at http://www.discoveringforlife.org/whc.

Barbra asked Oprah if she realized that more women die from heart disease than cancer, and Oprah said, “yes…” with a smile and a comment about how it has been discussed on her show before. Barbra said it was news to her and that the idea that there is so little research that has been done with women about this issue was something she wants to change.

I was thus reminded of the past several posts in which this issue has been discussed and that we need to do a better job of communicating about the status of health science. More women need to understand that too few of us participate in medical research. Barbra Streisand is helping to increase awareness by talking about this reality.

But taking it one step further, even when research has been funded and could include women, women may not participate because families and jobs make it seem nearly impossible to do so. We need our families and our employers to support our participation. We need to ask them to support our participation. If not us, who will do it?

I have participated in clinical trials a couple of times as I describe in my book, ‘Talking about health’. I was asked to participate in research relating to the use of surgery for endometriosis. I felt that I could not say ‘no’ when I am always promoting participation to others and when I am always asking people to participate in my own research. But I had some questions and some concerns. I wanted to know how my privacy would be protected when researchers were looking at my case and seeing the laser treatment being used for my endometriosis. breastexam011

I asked questions about my concerns. I learned that the recorded images would be of the internal activities, so my body as I know it was not going to appear on anyone’s screen. That was reassuring to me. I had several other questions as well, and asking them made me more comfortable with the idea of participating. In fact, now when I have a diagnosis that is a chronic condition, I ask if there are any reseach studies going on that I might be able to participate in. I hope you might consider talking to your doctors about medical research and how you might be involved as well…