RWL #158 - Telemedicine, Prosthetic Violin, 101st Airborne Team Doc
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! Last week of break. The students come back on Monday and classes start on Tuesday. I’m almost ready. One syllabus done and published, the other … well, maybe I’m not quite almost ready. But I am looking forward to seeing my students and they are coming ready or not. My computer died on me last week, so that has slowed me down a bit. On the fun side, we did make a long weekend trip to Miami Beach as a last hurrah. I’d never been other than to pass through, so it was great to explore. My favorite thing was doing stand up paddle boarding at night up the Miami River. That’s me on the left above. Miami has such great food - my wife and I are big fans of food tours. We did one in South Beach and one in Little Havana. If you don’t have a lot of time in a location, I highly recommend seeking out a food tour. You get a bit of culture, history, and of course, delicious food that ties it all together.
I’m excited to share this week’s links, especially my interview with LTC Amy Thompson (see listen below). Have a great week and do amazing things!
Read
What: Denver Post, Telemedicine’s challenge: Getting patients to click the app
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/02/17/telemedicine-virtual-doctor-visits/
Why: This is a short article about benefits of telemedicine and the resistance to its adoption. I haven’t used telemedicine formally - i.e., with a doctor, PA, or NP that I don’t know - because my insurer doesn’t offer the service, but I do have family members who are docs and I’ve taken advantage of them. One diagnosed cellulitis over FaceTime and called in a prescription for antibiotics. I was able to skip the nuisance of trying to make an appointment, driving 30 minutes each way to my PCM’s office, waiting in the clinic, waiting, waiting, waiting… wasting half a day. Now the advantage for me is I knew the person on the other end of the line, so there was already trust there, and no communication barriers. In addition, cellulitis is pretty easy to diagnose with visual inspection and some history, so it’s probably optimal for a telehealth consult. If there had been language barriers, or perhaps the patient has difficulty expressing her/himself, or simple trust barriers, then telemedicine could be problematic.
Some of the resistance discussed in the article focused on the older population, who expressed a preference for in person care. I see that as a matter of incentives. If you’re retired, your time cost is very low, and the social value of making a trip to the doctor is probably higher if you have less social interaction in your life. This strikes me as more about costs than it does about culture and resistance to change.
I’m looking forward to when I can use telemedicine instead of taking the time to go to my assigned PCM.
Watch
What: My Modern Met, One-Armed Violinist Performs Beautiful Solo With Custom-Built Prosthetic Bow Arm (3 min)
https://mymodernmet.com/manami-ito-prosthetic-violin-bow/
Why: So in case you don’t currently feel inadequate, do watch this video. Manami Ito lost her right arm in a traffic accident. Since then she has become a nurse, a paralympian swimmer, and a classical violinist. What are you doing these days? Here’s three minutes to inspire you to be grateful for what you have and get off the couch and take advantage of your gifts. I’m consistently amazed at the innovations in prosthetics over the last decades and what people who use them are doing with them.
Listen
What: The Health Leader Forge, LTC Amy Thompson, Division Surgeon, 101st Airborne Division (48 min)
https://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2020/01/ltc-amy-thompson-division-surgeon-101st.html
Why: I got to interview the self-described “team doc” for the 101st Airborne Division for this month’s podcast. Like Ito (above), she’s pretty inspiring to listen to, but for different reasons. After almost failing out of ROTC because she couldn’t do enough push-ups, she’s gone on to serve with the infantry as a battalion, brigade, and now division surgeon. A division has about 20,000 soldiers, and LTC Thompson’s job is to oversee their health in garrison and in combat. The military uses the term “surgeon” to refer to the office not the specialty, like the Surgeon General, who often is not a surgeon but some sort of public health specialist. In this case, LTC Thompson is a pediatrician with a fellowship in adolescent medicine which may sound weird, but adolescent medicine specializes in the 12-24 age range, and if you think, as LTC Thompson mentions, that half of the Army is under the age of 25, that’s a pretty relevant specialty. Truth in lending - I’ve known Amy for about seven years, though mostly through her husband, LTC Josh Thompson, who was one of my students once upon a time. I did consult with Amy several years ago when one of my then teen daughters was having some health issues, and I think she’s a pretty great doc as well as officer. It was fun to dig into her career and talk about her journey from medical student to rising star in the Army Medical Corps. If you don’t know much about military medicine, this is a great podcast to listen to. I think you’ll be inspired by Amy’s focus on service and servant leadership.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
Have a great weekend and do amazing things!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau