Now That You Have Retired -What's Next?

PLANS A, B, AND C It's important to have your plan A but also a plan B or even a plan C. As an example, you may have envisioned lots of travel, and then along came COVID, or a new partner, or health problems that make travel less likely. Amenities in these retirement communities include gyms, restaurants, golf courses, tennis courts, swimming pools, and interesting lectures\classes that make your retirement pleasurable. [...]you might want to improve your gardening skills, landscape your yard, paint the fence, clean the garage, and sit and watch the sunset. Look into courses at a local community college or university;many higher education centers allow individuals to take non-credit classes at a low cost.

Is There a Moral Issue When Doctors Prescribe Placebos?

Medicine has made use of placebos, or sugar pills, with no medicinal value for several thousand years. Even clinical studies conducted today use placebos to compare the efficacy of investigative medications or treatments. For example, in the COVID-19 era, experimental investigations including hydroxychloroquine, steroids, or plasma from patients who have had COVID-19 and have antibodies that may be efficacious in treating COVID-19, have been compared with placebo or inert substances that certainly don't affect the course of the disease. Only in this fashion is it possible to determine the response to these and other substances. The use of placebos has raised an ethical question regarding giving patients an inert substance which has no known impact on the disease or condition being studied. Doctors or other medical investigators have a moral obligation to inform patients that they may be receiving either an active drug or a placebo. The patient cannot be told, however, which arm of a study they are in and whether they received the active drug or the placebo until the study has been completed. This article explains how placebos work and offers advice on the clinical use of placebos.

The Future of Medical Marketing

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, decreasing patient visits, fewer procedures and surgeries, lowered reimbursements, and rising overhead costs, doctors are looking for methods and techniques to become more efficient and more productive. Just a few decades ago, the only opportunity to promote our practices was to announce our practice in the local newspaper and include our address and phone number. Anything beyond that announcement was considered inappropriate and unethical. Fortunately, we have come a long way since the 1970s and have discovered effective and ethical methods of practice promotion. This article discusses the trends and the future of medical marking in 2022 and beyond.

Computers Will Not Replace Us

Artificial intelligence, or deep learning, might be the game-changer in healthcare that the computer was to technology in the early 1980s. The initial goal of artificial intelligence was to create a machine that would be equivalent to human intelligence. One of the limiting factors was the amount of computing power needed to accommodate the millions/billions of Xs and Os of computer data. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, computer power increased at an exponential rate, so that a smartphone now holds millions of times more processing power than the best computers that were used to send Neil Armstrong to the moon and back in 1969. Now computers have been given an injection of "electronic steroids," thus multiplying their power to perform tasks such as speech and object and facial recognition. We are on the cusp where artificial intelligence can potentially outperform physicians in reading x-rays and pathology slides.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES CULTURAL COMPETENCY IN HEALTHCARE

Many modern immigrant groups nurture their specific racial, ethnic, and cultural identities and encourage their children to carry on these traditions in addition to integrating with their adopted country. [...]the "salad bowl" metaphor is considered a more precise conceptualization of American immigration since the 1970s: "...not only does the salad bowl metaphor allow for the individuality of ethnic identities it represents, but it also paves the way for selective integration between ethnic groups based on their need to integrate in host societies. Nonetheless, because we live in an increasingly interconnected and multicultural world, this can generate problems or misunderstandings based on a lack of cultural sensitivity and inadequate communication. [...]gaining insights about other cultures can help us understand different perspectives of the world we live in and dispel negative stereotypes and personal biases. Healthcare providers should listen and learn from each patient and not assume or act on a broad national stereotype. [...]we also provide resources for practitioners interested in learning how to better manage patient care for those who are culturally diverse from the providers and their staff. [...]it is important to find out whom they may want to consult before making healthcare decisions. Since it is common for family members to request that a fatal diagnosis not be shared with the patient, early in the patient-provider relationship, ask the patient and immediate family members how much information and with whom they want it shared.

Becoming a Certified Telemedicine Professional: Taking Telemedicine to the Next Level

Physicians and other allied healthcare providers may feel compelled to increase their presence online for reasons of efficiency, increased demand from patients for virtual visits, and ability to compete with other physicians who offer telemedicine services. By the late 1950s, developments in closed-circuit television and video communications were being used by medical personnel, who began to employ them in clinical situations. Another early example of television linking doctors and patients was at Massachusetts General Hospital/Logan International Airport Medical Station, which was established in 1967.7 This facility used a two-way audiovisual microwave circuit and permitted healthcare to be provided to passengers and airport employees 24 hours a day by nurses, supplemented by physician expertise using an audiovisual link. The World Health Organization defines telemedicine (also called telehealth) as the "the delivery of health care services, where the distance between the provider and the patient is a critical factor . . . for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries.

Viral Marketing in Healthcare: The Kind of Virus You Actually Want to Catch

The term viral marketing was coined by two venture capitalists to describe the rapid growth of an organization as a result of consumers spreading a message through their own word-of-mouth networks.2 Their main observation was that viral messages spread organically, with spatial and network locality, very much like biological viruses.3 The metaphor depicting viral marketing as a biological virus is largely due to the ideas that: (1) marketers should encourage consumers to disseminate content so as to create the potential for exponential growth;4 and (2) the viral content's spread and effect on consumers is an inherently uncontrollable risk. Patients ultimately are consumers who are exposed to hundreds of marketing messages every day. Because it is not possible for humans to consciously attend to all of our sensory inputs at the same time,7 most potential patients inevitably ignore most messages. According to Kaplan and Haenlein, 8 to make viral marketing work, "the right people need to get the right message under the right circumstances." Participants had to accept and complete the Ice Bucket Challenge within 24 hours.11 We contend that the time limit that was placed on the challenge created a sense of urgency and was one of the main reasons why the campaign spread so quickly. Because the Ice Bucket Challenge was so successful, other organizations could play off the same idea in an attempt to create their own viral marketing campaigns.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Mental Health of Healthcare Providers

Studies of previous epidemics have reported that the psychological impact of quarantine can vary, from immediate effects, such as irritability, fear of contracting and spreading infection to family members, anger, confusion, frustration, loneliness, denial, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and despair, to extreme consequences, including suicide.1 Effects such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been reported, with the symptoms positively associated with the duration of quarantine.2 Post-quarantine psychological effects may include significant socioeconomic distress and psychological symptoms due to financial losses.1 The psychological impact is not confined to adults and older individuals. [...]the COVID-19 pandemic has commanded constant media coverage and prompted global social media correspondence, a societal outturn that was not seen during the SARS outbreak. Difficult decisions, such as how to allocate insufficient resources among equally compromised patients, may contribute to mental health issues or moral injury.22 These stress factors and work overload make healthcare professionals particularly prone to psychological distress, thus increasing their probability of developing psychiatric disorders.23-25 Vicarious Trauma Vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress is always a concern during times of disaster. Symptoms of vicarious trauma include appetite loss, fatigue, physical decline, sleep and attention disorders, irritability, numbness, fear, and despair.26 Such internal pressures could adversely affect healthcare professionals' decision-making, thus leading to the degradation of their health.20 Li et al.26 evaluated 214 healthy individuals