Upcoming WIHI Program on Clinician Support

MITSS Executive Director, Linda Kenney; Dr. Albert Wu; and, Sue Scott of the UMissouri forYOU Team (the 2009 MITSS HOPE Award winner) will be featured on an upcoming WIHI program on Clinician Support. The program will be moderated by IHI's Madge Kaplan and air live on Thursday, February 4th, at 2 pm. It is free to listen in and participate, but registration is required. Click here for exciting details.

This promises to be an informative and lively program, so mark your calendars and join us!

A Less than Healthy Experience...

We recently had a patient write us with a troubling account of a doctor's visit. Her story is disturbing on a number of different levels. Read on...

Back in November, I visited my PCP for a yearly visit and confessed to her that I have been experiencing severe night sweats for the last six months. She had no idea why this would be, especially considering I am in superior overall health. To help find a solution, she ordered some blood work. Results showed that I had extremely low blood sugar, and she scheduled me for an appointment with an endocrinologist.

After waiting two months to finally see this endocrinologist, I went to the appointment with hopes of getting a solution to my troubling problem. When the doctor appeared in the waiting area and began a conversation with me, the phone rang. As the phone continued to ring, the doctor proceeded to put his head in his hands and say out loud, “I want to quit.” Of course, this was a sign of things to come.

The doctor told me that I was basically a one in a million case and didn’t know what my problem was. He didn’t want to send me for a cat scan to see if I had a tumor on my pancreas because the radiologist might want to do more tests. However, he did want me to do fasting blood work. I then asked, “So if my blood sugar comes back low again, or normal, how do the results help us solve my problem?” “They won’t” he said to me. I inquired further, “Ok, so what am I supposed to do to help stop the sweating?” “Learn to live with it” was his reply.

Learn to live with it?! I then started to cry and became angry. I exclaimed that I had to change clothes nightly and wash sheets constantly – that isn’t something anyone wants to live with! I told him how embarrassed I was to even have company over because of a sweat smell in my room – never mind engaging in any sort of romantic relationship and having someone stay the night. The doctor said to me, “I’ve never heard of a guy leaving a girl because of some sweating.” I got increasingly angry, and he slowly backed out the room leaving me alone in tears with no hope of solving my problem.

I know not every doctor has every answer, but I’d hope they would help find someone who might (and if they didn’t, not bluntly state “live with it”). How would you like to wake up in the middle of the night soaked head-to-toe, Doctor? I’m sure you wouldn’t be too happy to live that. I know I deserve better healthcare than this, and with the aid of friends I am on the search to find a new endocrinologist and, hopefully, a solution to my problem. I feel sorry for those people who might accept answers like this and continue to live with serious health issues. We all need to continue to advocate for the patient-centered healthcare that we deserve.

What do you think? If you have had a similar experience, we'd like to hear about it.

Eighth Annual Dinner Videos Ready to View!

The MITSS 8th Annual Dinner and Fundraiser held this past November 12th was a smashing success due to the support and hard work of our sponsors, leadership committee, planning committee, board of directors, and volunteers. We have posted some exciting highlights to our You Tube Channel. Check out the links below:

Click here for general highlights;
Click here for the HOPE Award Presentation (part 1);
Click here for the HOPE Award Presentation (part 2);
Click here for Linda Kenney's Call to Action;
Click here for Sue Sheridan's wonderful Keynote Address (part 1);
Click here for Sue Sheridan's wonderful Keynote Address (part 2); and,
Click here for Sue Sheridan's wonderful Keynote Address (part 3).

We hope that you enjoy these clips. We'd also love to hear what you think -- your feedback is always appreciated.

Wishing everyone in the MITSS community a healthy, happy holiday season!!!

Engage with Grace -- Reprise

Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented "blog rally" to promote Engage With Grace , a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes.

It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space and beyond participating and spreading the word. Plus, it was timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these tough conversations -- our closest friends and family.

Our original mission -- to get more and more people talking about their end of life wishes -- hasn't changed. But it's been quite a year, so we thought this holiday, we'd try something different.

A bit of levity.

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation started. We've included them at the end of this post. They're not easy questions, but they are important.

To help ease us into these tough questions, and in the spirit of the season, we thought we�d start with five parallel questions that ARE pretty easy to answer:

Silly? Maybe. But it underscores how having a template like this -- just five questions in plain, simple language -- can deflate some of the complexity, formality and even misnomers that have sometimes surrounded the end-of-life discussion.

So with that, we've included the five questions from Engage With Grace below. Think about them, document them, share them.

Over the past year there's been a lot of discussion around end of life. And we've been fortunate to hear a lot of the more uplifting stories, as folks have used these five questions to initiate the conversation.

One man shared how surprised he was to learn that his wife's preferences were not what he expected. Befitting this holiday, The One Slide now stands sentry on their fridge.

Wishing you and yours a holiday that's fulfilling in all the right ways.

(To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. )

And the Winners Are...

There was an unusual twist to the 2009 MITSS HOPE Award -- voting by an independent Selection Committee resulted in a tie! This year's winners were announced on Thursday, November 12th, at the MITSS 8th Annual Dinner and Fundraiser held at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

This year's sponsor, rL Solutions' CEO and President, Sanjay Malaviya, presented the prestigious award to Patty Skolnik of Colorado Citizens for Accountability (CCA); and Sue Scott, Myra McCoig, and Laura Hirschinger of the forYOU Team from the University of Missouri Health System.

Ms. Skolnik was rewarded for her work in founding CCA after the tragic death of her son, Michael. CCA is a grassroots patient safety organization that has provided support and resources to thousands of individuals and families nationwide since 2005.

Ms. Scott, Ms. McCoig, and Ms. Hirschinger were recognized for their important work with the forYOU Team, a comprehensive approach for providing emotional peer support to clinicians, beginning immediately after critical events. Look for more information about these amazing winners and their programs in the Winter edition of the MITSS Newsletter coming in December.

It was a record year for submissions -- the depth and breadth of the work being done around the country that is aligned with our mission of Supporting Healing and Restoring Hope is astounding. We would not only like to congratulate our winners on their most deserving award, but we would like to honor everyone who submitted an entry. Keep up the important work!

You May Have Noticed...

...that this space has a bit more quiet than usual. That's because things have been quite busy of late. It's that time of year again -- fundraising season!

We hope that you will be able to join us next Thursday, November 12th, 2009, at the Boston Marriottt Copley Place for our Eighth Annual Dinner and Fundraiser. Cocktails and raffles begin at 5:30 pm, and the program starts promptly at 7 pm. It promises to be an extraordinary evening, and we hope that you will be there to celebrate and support MITSS!

If you cannot attend, but you would still like to help out, visit our online auction. Click here to view and bid on some terrific items. Start your holiday shopping now, but don't delay -- the online auction closes on Monday, November 9th!

MITSS Online Auction is now open

LET THE BIDDING BEGIN! The MITSS 2009 Online Auction is now open. Don't be outbid -- win some terrific prizes, all for a great cause!!!

Click here to start your bidding.

All the funds raised will assist MITSS to continue doing our work of "Supporting Healing. Restoring Hope." to patients, families and clinicians following adverse medical events.