vulnerability | Patient Commando

By Dr. Jennifer Kelly February 12, 2012

I was jogging one day while on a business trip in LA and collapsed during the run. Within hours, I was at the hospital at UCLA Medical Center on a gurney headed for a CT scan of my abdominal cavity. I remember telling the ER physicians that I was a doctor and recommending my own course of action. As my advice to the ER doctors went largely ignored, I realized, at that moment, that being a doctor myself really didn’t matter.

I wasn’t a doctor anymore. I was a patient.

That was almost a year ago. At the time, I recalled that The Archives of Internal Medicine had published a much-discussed study that revealed doctors might recommend different treatments for their patients than they would for themselves. They were far more likely to prescribe for patients a potentially life-saving treatment with severe side effects than they were to pick that treatment for themselves. Yes, doctors were much more willing to risk their patients’ lives than their own; they were much more willing to gamble with their patients’ lives than their own.

Understandably, people are worried that these findings mean doctors know something they’re not telling [...] continue the story

Diabetes is fast emerging as one of the most serious health problems of our time – a global epidemic that claims more lives each year than HIV/AIDS. Children with diabetes in the developing world are particularly vulnerable. Many lack access to proper care and the life-saving medicines they need to survive. As a result, they become chronically ill; many die quickly, while others develop severe complications such as kidney failure, blindness and nerve damage. Directed by Academy Award-nominee Edward Lachman, the documentary “Life for a Child” follows the journeys of children with Type 1 diabetes amid the verdant mountains and swarming streets of Nepal, one the world’s poorest countries. Through their eyes and in their words, we experience their life-and-death struggle to survive – and, in fact, even thrive.