8/01/2010 Nurse Navigators – A New Patients Advocate

Navigating through the emotional, medical, social and financial process after being diagnosed with a serious disease is completely foreign to most people. The feeling of being alone, scared and confused is typical. Realizing just how intimidating this is, hospitals have started patient advocacy programs that enable patients with experts to navigate them from diagnosis to treatment and hopefully a cure.

There’s no question that quitting smoking benefits your health, not least by reducing your risk of developing lung cancer. But what if you’re a smoker who has already been diagnosed with lung cancer — will quitting give you any advantage in fighting the disease?

http://wellness.blogs.time.com/2010/01/22/quit-smoking/

What Broke My Father’s Heart

How putting in a pacemaker wrecked a family’s life. When (the doctor) suggested the pacemaker for the second time, my father was too stroke-damaged to discuss, and perhaps even to weigh, his tradeoffs. The decision fell to my mother — anxious to relieve my father’s pain, exhausted with caregiving, deferential to doctors and no expert on high-tech medicine. She said yes. One of the most important medical decisions of my father’s life was over in minutes.