REPOST: Doctors working in fast-food restaurants

Immigrants are forced to make do with whatever job is available for them. Take for instance the doctors mentioned in this CNN article. While educated and trained in medicine in their own country, moving to the US saw them doing jobs that are far from their specialization.

(CNN) -- Landor Sanchez wants to practice medicine again.

But instead, he's laboring at an asbestos removal company in upstate New York. For five years, Sanchez was a family medicine doctor in Cuba. He moved to the United States in 2011 with the dream of being a doctor there.

Like many immigrants, he had a plan to live with friends to save money and to study for the exam to become medically licensed in the United States.

But soon, his money ran out. And Sanchez found himself with less time to study and instead taking any job he could get -- from painting, to fast-food restaurants, to, now, asbestos removal.

A doctor, not practicing medicine, in a country that is short of primary care physicians.

Sanchez's story is common among Latino immigrant doctors.

In Southern California alone, there are an estimated 3,000 medically trained Latino immigrant doctors who aren't practicing medicine.

"We had always wondered, where are the (immigrant) doctors from Latin America?" says Dr. Patrick Dowling, chairman of UCLA's Department of Family Medicine. "And we stumbled upon them working in menial jobs."

Instead of treating patients, Dowling says, many doctors spend years cleaning houses or working on construction sites and in fast-food chain restaurants.

"We heard from one woman working at McDonald's in Colorado," says Dowling. "So she is selling fast food to people, and if she were licensed as a physician, she could be educating those same people, those same patients, on what a good diet is."

Latino immigrant doctors have a harder time than other immigrants transitioning into the U.S. health system, according to Dowling.

"Often they work in their own country for 10 years and then come here and they aren't licensed, and then they see how hard the process is and they have to get an odd job to support themselves."

It's a costly, time-consuming process that most immigrants aren't prepared for. From migrant worker to neurosurgeon

That's why Dowling and his colleague, Dr. Michelle Bholat, have developed a program at UCLA that helps fast-track Latino immigrant doctors into the U.S. health care system, the International Medical Graduate program.

The IMG program provides test prep classes and clinical observations with UCLA doctors. It also covers the cost of the U.S. medical board exam and provides a monthly stipend.

Funded by private donors, the program has helped 66 Latino immigrant doctors pass the board exams and get placed into residency programs in California. In return, the doctors commit to working three years in an underserved area.

Dr. Jose Chavez is one of those graduates.

He was a doctor in El Salvador with more than eight years of medical training when he moved to the United States in 2005.

But prior to last year, he wasn't working in a U.S. hospital -- or any hospital. Instead, he was cleaning houses and installing flooring.

"I would do anything you asked me to as long as it was legal and you paid me for it," he says.

Chavez says without the help of UCLA's IMG program, he would still be working odd jobs to pay the bills while juggling his time to study for the test at night. "It requires you study at least 10 hours a day," says Chavez. "Imagine you are working 10 hours a day, and then try to study 10 hours at night. It is really impossible."

The stipend allowed Chavez to stop cleaning homes and focus solely on his studies. He passed the U.S. medical board exam just six months after being accepted into the program.

Today, he is a first-year resident at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in California -- a place in desperate need of doctors. Riverside County has just one primary care physician for every 9,000 residents, according to the hospital. "I personally know at least 20 more (Latino immigrant) doctors who are delivering pizza, and instead they could be working as doctors if they had the help I had," say Chavez.

And with Obamacare potentially adding 25 million to 30 million people to the health system, the doctor shortage is going to get worse before it gets better. "When 2014 rolls around, they (Americans) may have an insurance card, but where are they going to get care?" says Bholat. "It is not enough to just issue an insurance card."

Your health care is covered, but who's going to treat you?

The problem is compounded in California because of the large immigrant population. "Forty percent of the population here is Hispanic, but only 5% of our doctors are Latino. That is an amazing gap," says Bholat.

Dowling and Bholat say while their fast-track program may make only a small dent to help the primary care shortage in America, it's a critical start.

"We're getting dozens of applications daily, and we accept as many candidates as we can financially support in the program," says Bholat "We need these doctors in America."

Sanchez has applied to the UCLA IMG program and is waiting to hear if he gets accepted.

Until then, he'll continue to work at the asbestos removal company during the day, and study for the U.S. medical boards at night.

But he says no matter how long it takes, he won't give up on his dream to practice medicine in the United States.

As a former hospital administrator, Terry Lambert has extensive experience in running healthcare institutions. Follow this Twitter page for more news and updates on the medical industry.

A look at the country’s best hospitals

Image Source: childrenshospital.org

Every year, U.S. News releases a list of the country’s Best Children's Hospitals in the following practices:

Cancer
Cardiology & Heart Surgery
Diabetes & Endocrinology
Gastroenterology & GI Surgery
Neonatology
Nephrology
Neurology & Neurosurgery
Orthopedics
Pulmonology
Urology

The distinction between adult and child hospital services must be awarded because of the delicate care children require when battling common diseases. While illnesses are somewhat predictable for adults, the effect of more serious diseases or cancers on younger, less developed bodies, cannot always be pre-determined. Facilities that cater to the needs of children are generally more expensive. Not all hospitals invest in them.

Image Source: chron.com

With type 2 diabetes becoming an epidemic among children in America, Boston Children's Hospital, a teaching hospital in Massachusetts, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, earned the top spots for their advanced facilities supporting pediatric endocrinology, blood disease research, and cancer care for children. The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio topped the charts for pediatric cancer specialties. Its 506 physicians and 512-bed capacity give inpatients almost a 1:1 doctor-patient ratio to ensure maximum attention per case.

For more common pulmonary disorders, such as cough and the common cold, the Texas Children's Hospital ranked third among the 87 hospitals reviewed. This non-profit facility stands out with zero employment for full-time doctors. It is staffed by medical students and other medical professionals.

To see more of the list, visit the U.S. News website.  

Image Source: health.usnews.com

Disease control and prevention are one of the fastest cures for children with weaker immune systems. Former hospital administrator Terry Lambert of Emporia gives tips on how families can maintain healthy lifestyles and avoid diseases on this Twitter account.

REPOST: Maternal Health Startup Makes History As First 'Do-It-Yourself' Benefit Corporation In Michigan

A Michigan startup company founded by University of Michigan students has made legal history by becoming the first “do-it-yourself” benefit corporation in the state. This Forbes article reports more about this innovation.

Design Innovations for Infants and Mothers Everywhere Inc., or DIIME, was founded in 2010 by a group of eight students in the University of Michigan’s Global Health Design program. The high rate of maternal mortality in the developing world was the health issue that grabbed the attention of the founders of DIIME. Every year between 300,000 and 500,000 women die due to complications related to childbirth and pregnancy, while four million infants die every year before reaching four weeks of age.

Image source: Forbes

DIIME founders resolved to create a company that would develop low-cost medical devices to improve maternal and infant health in Ghana and other parts of the developing world. At the same time, the company would have to earn sufficient profit to be sustainable and be able to raise capital from socially oriented investors. DIIME would be a “social enterprise,” in other words, a business dedicated to generating both financial and social returns.

Like many social enterprises, DIIME quickly discovered that the existing legal entity forms were not a good fit with its “double bottom line” objectives. DIIME’s profit-making goals would be problematic in a nonprofit corporation, while DIIME’s social mission seemed equally out of place in a for-profit corporation, where company directors typically pursue profit maximization. To solve this problem, since 2010, legislatures in 14 U.S. states, including most recently Delaware, have adopted statutes expressly permitting the creation of a new type of legal entity: the “benefit corporation.” Benefit corporations are for-profit businesses dedicated to providing benefits to society while also protecting company directors from liability to shareholders for not maximizing profits. (A benefit corporation bill was introduced in Michigan in 2011, but the Michigan legislature has not yet taken action.)

DIIME turned to the International Transactions Clinic (ITC) at the University of Michigan Law School for advice. DIIME and law students enrolled in the ITC worked together to organize the legal formation of an entity in Michigan, create a capital structure, protect the company’s intellectual property, and move DIIME’s international business plan forward. Most recently, the company took the decisive step: DIIME included in its new articles of incorporation key “benefit corporation” provisions of the Model Benefit Corporation Act. This allowed DIIME to pursue its social mission, take into account interests other than profit maximization, and protect its directors to the extent possible from any resulting liability, all in the context of a for-profit corporation organized under the existing Michigan Business Corporation Act. DIIME’s articles of incorporation were formally accepted by the Michigan Corporation Division on April 30, 2013.

“We were delighted to be able to incorporate DIIME in our home state of Michigan without having to sacrifice our company’s double bottom line mission,” said Gillian Henker, one of the founders and current president of DIIME. “We’re thrilled to pave the way for other social enterprises wishing to incorporate here in Michigan. This is a big step forward not only for our company, but for any company that sees its role in society as being bigger than simply maximizing profits.”

DIIME is truly a social enterprise pioneer. To my knowledge, DIIME’s “do-it-yourself” benefit corporation is the first in the country. DIIME has blazed a trail for social enterprises not only here in Michigan, but also in other jurisdictions that also have not enacted a benefit corporation statute.

The ITC team consisted of third-year law students Michael Byun and Gabriel Katz, supervised by David Guenther, a partner at Conlin, McKenney & Philbrick, P.C. in Ann Arbor and an adjunct clinical assistant professor in the ITC.

“There has been a great deal of academic commentary and debate on the purpose of the corporation and whether it’s to maximize profits to shareholders,” Guenther said. “There has been much less commentary on who should answer that question—shareholders, courts or legislators.”

“We looked very carefully at the Michigan Business Corporation Act and concluded there was no reason why shareholders couldn’t include a social purpose and other benefit corporation provisions in their articles of incorporation, even without the existence of benefit corporation legislation here in Michigan. That’s exactly what DIIME wound up doing. Fortunately, the Michigan Corporation Division gave DIIME’s articles a thoughtful review and agreed with us.”

Family- and relationships-oriented, Terry Lambert served as the hospital administrator at Walnut Ridge. Read more about his undertakings on this website.

Quick facts about the new home-birth guidelines

Home births used to be the status quo, but the availability of hospitals and the development of more hygienic ways to carry out childbirth have significantly reduced the number of home births over the years. Doctors generally do not prefer to perform home births for a number of reasons largely related to sanitation. Still, they recognize the women who do opt for home birth and have released a set of guidelines published in the academy’s journal, Pediatrics.

Image source: sheknows.com

Some of the more obvious and expected guidelines include the following:

• All medical equipment should be tested before the delivery.
• There should be at least one person at the birth who will be solely responsible for tending to the newborn infant. This person should also be trained in infant CPR.
• There should be a working phone line kept open and available for immediate use.
• There should be a plan to transfer the mother to a hospital in case of emergencies.
• The person attending to the infant should perform all the routine tests that nurses perform on a newborn baby: monitor their temperature and heart rate, keep them warm, and administer vitamin K and heel-prick test, which will be sent to an outside laboratory for processing.

Image source: guardian.co.uk

While seemingly standard, the guidelines did include one provision which raised eyebrows among physicians in the field: It is strongly recommended that only midwives who were cleared by the American Midwifery Certification Board could assist in home births because these midwives typically attend deliveries at hospitals and birthing centers.

Interestingly, it was not the fact that home births were still allowed which caused controversy but that one type of midwife should be better than another.

Image source: thedailybeast.com

As a former hospital administrator at Newman Regional Hospital in Emporia, Kansas, Terry Lambert is a strong advocate of accessible hospital services. Follow this Facebook page for more insights from his experience in the medical field.

Hospital hierarchy: Ironing out the conflicts within

The concept of a hospital was conceived with the well-being of patients in mind. Ideally, doctors and nurses work together to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, there are many instances when patients do not feel secure even in a hospital, especially when they discover a conflict between the nurse and the doctor.

Image Source: mensliberty.com

The hospital hierarchy was established to promote order among personnel, and to offer a solution to who has the final say on particular cases. Because their training gives doctors the authority to make diagnoses and other major medical decisions, nurses are often seen as the inferior of the two.

But there is little reason to belittle the medical knowledge held by nurses. After all, they were educated just as much as doctors were, and therefore possess a level of medical knowledge roughly similar to many physicians. They even act as the “final check” whether a doctor’s decision is right or not.

Image Source: menliberty.com

However, there are cases when the boundaries of the individual duties of nurses and doctors collide and overlap, causing conflict. For instance, a nurse may notice something wrong with a prescription. While solving this sort of issue typically takes nothing more than asking the doctor to correct the prescription, the mechanics of hospital hierarchy is not as simple as that.

Many doctors think of themselves as superior to nurses. Most of the time, they are favoured by the hospital administration. For a nurse to question a doctor’s decision takes more than guts—it requires being prepared to lose a job. As physician Otis Webb Brawley observed in his book, “To throw this kind of challenge, you have to not mind being unemployed.”

Image Source: akronchildrens.org

Needless to say, this causes a number of problems for patients, including delay and errors in the delivery of treatment. This is all the more reason for the mechanics of hospital hierarchy to be fixed.

A former hospital administrator at Newman Regional Hospital in Emporia, Kansas, Terry Lambert is fully aware of the effective ways to promote harmony in a hospital environment. Check out this Facebook page for more discussion on health care.

REPOST: James Patterson urges more dads to read to children

Thriller novelist James Patterson encourages fathers to spend more time reading to their children. He believes that reading can open up a whole new world of possibility to them. The full story can be read on BBC's website.

Bestselling author James Patterson has joined the Duchess of Cornwall at the launch of a campaign to encourage more fathers to read to their children.

A poll, on behalf of reading charity Booktrust, revealed that only one in eight dads are the main family reader.

"If I can help dads to understand their role in making books and reading more important in children's lives, I'll be a happy man," said Patterson.

Reading, he added can "open up a whole world of possibility to them".

"I believe that dads have a huge role to play in encouraging their children to read," he said at the launch of Booktrust's Get Dads Reading campaign, at a library in London.



The US author, who regularly tops library lending in the UK, is a founding partner of a fund run by the Booktrust to get disadvantaged children reading.

Arguably best known for his thrillers featuring detective Alex Cross, Patterson has been writing children's books since 2005 - prompted by the desire to get his own son interested in reading.

His Maximum Ride and Daniel X series have proved bestseller with children and adults alike. His most recent book in the teenage-focused Middle School series is released in the US next month.

"We are here to save lives - that's my role - because if you cannot read your life will be severely disadvantaged," he told a fathers' reading group in Greenwich, London.

"This is not about reading Charles Dickens or Shakespeare, but learning to read with confidence - if you can do that you can make your way through school, college and work.

"America is ahead in getting kids to read, the UK is behind America - something's going wrong here."

The Booktrust poll reveals that only 13% of fathers in the UK take the lead with reading to their children. A quarter of fathers blame working late for not reading to their children.

Further research, commissioned by the charity from the Institute of Education, suggests many fathers see reading as a female domain. When they do read to their children, fathers favour their daughters over their sons, reading to them for longer, and more often.

"The most crucial thing for dads to understand is that if kids see their dads reading they're more likely to enjoy it themselves," said Viv Bird, chief executive of Booktrust.

"There is evidence that boys are slipping further behind girls in reading - and this emphasises how important it is that dads are positive role models to their sons as well as their daughters when it comes to reading."

Patterson, who was named Children's Choice Book Award Author of the Year in 2010, has sold an estimated 260 million copies of his books worldwide.

The 65-year-old novelist has created the website ReadKiddoRead to help fathers find interesting books to read to their children.

Family- and relationships-oriented, Terry Lambert served as the hospital administrator at Walnut Ridge. There he also sat on the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and in the Rotary Club. This Twitter page provides more updates on his latest undertakings.

There's an app for that: Finding the Facebook friend who gave you the flu

Image Source: guardian.co.uk

 
















When they called it the “common cold,” they certainly weren’t kidding. The new year brings about drastic temperature changes nationwide and, along with it, the flu season. Preventing a subscription to the recent bout of influenza requires more than just getting a flu shot. Now that we’re in the mobile age, flu prevention has got its own app, too.


Part of preventing illness is staying away from the causes. A new Facebook app called "Help, I have the flu" determines which friends in one’s social network are likely sources of flu contamination. Then the app warns users to stay away from these friends to prevent them from catching the flu themselves.

Image Source: mainetoday.com

 























Contrary to Facebook’s reputation for violating user privacy, this information is not obtained in an invasive manner. Instead, the app’s algorithms scan friends’ recent posts for evidence of flu-like symptoms. If any friends have reported sneezing, coughing, or generally feeling ill, they will appear on the app’s watch list, which serves as a warning to the user. True to what friends are for, the app allows users to send potentially infected friends discounts for flu medication. Should the user still contract the flu, there’s a handy list of sources (or people) to blame.



Apps for the flu season
 

Image Source: pediatrics.about.com

Flu prevention is no new precautionary measure, but an increasing number of mobile apps are aiming to expand its clout. Cross-country travelers can check The Center for Disease Control and Prevention app for the flu situation at their destination and bring medication, if necessary. Those who suffer symptoms but don’t appear to have the flu can consult Cures A-Z for some home diagnosis. While the best flu prevention is still medication and immediate consultation, mobile apps make it easier for individuals to detect potential risk and take the initiative to prevent further infection.



Mobile apps have helped the healthcare industry reach people in need at incredible speed. Former hospital administrator Terry Lambert, formerly of (Emporia), has insights on the advances in the healthcare industry that may be found on this website.