Welcome to Grand Rounds 5.15: At the interface of evolution and medicine, a celebration of blogging on the myriad ways evolutionary biology influences medicine. Why evolution and medicine, you may ask? Why now? Well, in anticipation of the new year, of course; 2009 marks the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On The Origin of Species, and the one thing that just doesn’t get as much recognition as it should is the role of evolutionary biology in both research and clinical medicine.Heady stuff and relatively short since the editor was brave to include only pertinent posts.
-Wes
Hi Wes,
ReplyDeleteI hope you never give up blooging! I have been thouroughly enjoying reading your comments and would miss my daily dose of Dr. Wes if it disappeared.
I read your prior posts around our back injury. Welcome to my world! The problem is that most of primary care is so cash starved that we don't even have the bucks to hire nurses let alone nurse practitioners (which you specialists all seem to have tagging along after you these days). So chances are you talk to a recptionist who has no idea of the urgency of your problem and how urgently it needs to be attended to. European countries have much better access due to the fact that there is less of a spread between primary care and specialty care salaries, so they have quicker access to their primary care doc. Their med school graduates don't go out into the world deeply in debt since medical school is paid for and they don't feel compelled to have to spcialize for financial reasons alone.
As someone who has had to listen to the same version of "Feelin alright" over and over again, you elucidate some of the impersonality imparted by large health care systems managed by bean counters and effeciency experts. Thanks for remining me why I still struggle with managing my own practice rather than letting someone else do so, so I can concentrate on practicing medicine. It makes me realize that when I attempt to structure my office to best accomodate the needs of my patients, I am indeed practicing medicine, since these interactions and responses of my office staff are just as important as what I do as a doc.
Have a great New Year!
I am very glad to see another blogger decide not to include EVERY single post offered to them for Grand Rounds. It just seems to turn into a link farm, and doesn't necessarily represent the 'best' of the medical blogosphere. I am glad someone else picked up on the smart editing choice. I decided to do this as well when I hosted, and only caught a little flack.
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