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Dose of Sanity:

Work with someone who is 'Holier Than Thou'? Give them a gift certificate for Nurses Week!

GAMES FOR WHEN WE ARE OLDER

1. Sag, You're it.

2. Pin the Toupee on the bald guy.

3. 20 questions shouted into your good ear.

4. Kick the bucket.

5. Red Rover, Red Rover, the nurse says Bend Over.

6. Doc Doc Goose.

7. Simon says something incoherent.

8. Hide and go pee.

9. Spin the Bottle of Mylanta.

10. Musical Geri-chairs.

Get another dose of laughter at RFS' Daily Dose of Sanity or the wild colon humor site ColonoscopyJoke.com

Got a funny medical joke or photo to share? Email it to us, and if we use it here, we'll give you credit!

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Your Sanity Thought for the Day:

Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.

~ Roseanne Barr

By subscription only! Please Send this ezine to any HCP (Health Care Professional) you know who wants to enhance their joy in their career. Then they can sign up for their own subscription, as our gift!

To print this newsletter out to share, please set your printer options to 'landscape' so you won't lose the tasty margins!

Passionate HealthCare seeks to resuscitate your passion for your medical career. Your only cost for this prescription? Please comment, complain or educate us twice a year at PLRaymond@RxForSanity.com.

Hello, HCPs!

The big news, after of course Nurses Week this week, is that ABC is casting nurses for their version of "Nurse Eye for the Ill Guy". Get all the poop and nominate yourself or a colleague in the "Pat on the Back" segment of this newsletter. Fame is just a remote control away...you might become the Carson of Caregiving. Happy Nurses Week to all!

Pat Raymond M.D. FACP FACG
Chief Enjoyment Officer, Rx For Sanity

 Yes! I want my own subscription to Passionate HealthCare!

Table of Contents:

A 'Pat' on the Back	The Sanity Store
Bedside Manners	Weird Websites
Health News You Can Use	Mock Medical Music
Where to Meet or Hear Dr Raymond

Put Out Your Flame-Out

Face it: sometimes your ‘guru of medical balance’ feels as if she has feet of clay.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been exhausted by my tightly booked spring travel schedule. My medical office manager has departed for greener pastures, and the resulting office upheavals have consumed all my local evenings and free time to unravel. And what’s more, a deadline looms for a chapter of an anthology about finding the humor in healthcare… and I just don’t feel very funny right now.

No doubt about it. My life, just like yours, sometimes feels as if it is spiraling out of control. “But what happened?” you (and I) whine, “I thought I had achieved balance!” The error is that we often think of balance as if it were a destination, a steady state, a safe nesting place. Au contraire. Balance is a dynamic state, requiring continuous energy and attention. To visualize balance, think of a barrel resting on its side with a board placed lengthwise upon it. Stand on that board, continuously aware, adjusting, shifting, trying your best to stay upright and even roll the barrel in a forward direction while not tumbling to the ground. Balance takes effort. But how can we jump back up on our balance beam when all energy is consumed just in keeping our heads above water?

First we need to re-discover our sense of proportion, easy to lose in fatigue. Pull back and assess your challenges. In the big scheme of things, often your looming threats are in fact only puny and transient inconveniences. Neither I nor my loved ones are suffering from a life-threatening illness. Financially I will not need to change my career to selling pencils on street corners or dwell in a refrigerator box. Get a grip.

After the sense of proportion, man your battle stations and strip your self-care to the essentials. This is no time to insist on bells and whistles, or a twenty-step good health plan. Avoid food served through a car window. Instead, visit the grocery store salad bar and stock up on healthy frozen meals. Get outdoors daily, albeit briefly, and enjoy the changes of the seasons. ‘Hit the hay’ at a reasonable hour, insisting on eight hours of sleep. Make the time for thirty minutes of sweaty exercise as well as brain settling Tai Chi or meditation daily.

Your choices in flame-out? Distress or De-Stress. Choose to place your focus on self care, and invest your energy in yourself. You will regain your balance. This too shall pass.

Do you want another dose of Dr Raymond?
If you do, you'll need my book Don't Jettison Medicine, available at RxForSanity.com and Amazon.com.
Want to share some sanity in your medical newsletter? Dr Raymond's articles may be freely reprinted (see details at the bottom), and more of Dr. Raymond's most popular editorials are yours at Rx For Sanity Articles and at DontJettisonMedicine.com

Do you know someone who would enjoy this edition of Passionate HealthCare? We encourage you to Send it to a friend or colleague!

A ‘Pat’ on the back to…

Your chance to grasp fame! ABC Television/DreamWorks is beginning production on a new network "reality" show named "Miracle Workers." Each episode will feature a team of health professionals who will tackle a new patient's health problems in a manner similar to "Extreme Home Makeover" or "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." ABC has asked for help in finding nurses for the "Host Medical Team" that will guide viewers from show to show, perhaps like the Fab Five. This team is slated to include two nurses, one therapist/social worker and one physician. Surgical teams will also be consulting. To nominate yourself or someone else, e-mail (ASAP) miracleworkers@hotmail.com.

I recently attended a conference in Saratoga Springs NY that was remarkabe. Joel Goodman's Humor Hope and Healing Conference was revitalizing for anyone that believes in the healing power of humor, and you can get CME or CEU credits for laughing your head off! The next conference? PHC subscriber Goodman says, "Perchance your readers would be interested in our October 28-30th HUMOResilience Workshop (our 29th annual) at Lake George NY." Info as well as an extensive therapeutic humor bookstore is available at www.HumorProject.com.

My Nurses Week gift suggestion of the discharge of 'special patients' from office practice generated some feedback. Youll recal that physician JM gives his nurses an end-of-year gift each year: He invites his office staff to nominate the five most 'special' patients, with one or more 'specials' receiving a certified letter at the beginning of the next year, terminating care citing issues with the patient-caregiver relationship. Crysynda Buss replies "As a nurse manager, I feel it is my responsibility to help my staff deal with those very special time and emotion spending patients. We have a system. When such a patient arrives we send a heads up to those who will have contact. We try to isolate them so other patients do not have to partake in their behavior. Any nurse who feels her ability to handle the patient is shot, she will pass the buck. If I see a problem brewing, I will jump in and provide the care. The answer is we as caregivers do not have to provide care to impossible patients. I have told patients that I am trying to help you but I will stop if you continue to behave.......... They usually calm down and days later I usually get a letter or a call apologizing for their rudness. "

Thanks for the feedback, all! Let's grow our passionate community- Send this fun newsletter to five of your colleagues today as an el cheapo Nurses Week gift so that they too can get passionate about healthcare!

The Sanity Store: Here's what you've been waiting for!

"... as I finished I realized I was smiling and feeling good.

I guess that reaction to a book 'says it all'."

Are you making the mistake of giving your all to medicine, and never having anything left over for yourself or your family?

Protect yourself against “compassion fatigue”. You’ll love the results you get when you enjoy Don’t Jettison Medicine, Dr. Raymond’s acclaimed workbook of thirty fun and practical exercises to prioritize your life challenges, achieve health and financial freedom, and refocus your caregiving passion.

"Your book made me think (that's a good thing). Your book made me reflect and ask myself some personal and career questions (That's a very good thing). Mostly, however, your book made me smile and laugh out loud (an excellent Rx For Sanity). More importantly, the strategies were realistic and achieveable." ~Lynn Perry

How much is just one good idea worth to you? The cure can be in your hands for only $18.95.

Yes! Send mine now!

Bedside manners: Smiling on the job

At a recent conference at Miami Hospital, this poem was presented as being posted near their nursing stations to encourage high spirits of the staff. Lovely sentiment:

If You Are Waiting…

If you are waiting
Possibly you may see us laughing
Or even taking note of some jest
But know that we’re giving your loved ones
Our care at its very best.

There are times when tension is high
There are times when our systems are stressed
And we’ve discovered humor a factor
In keeping our sanity blessed.

So if you’re a patient in waiting
Or relative or friend on one seen
Don’t hold it against our smiling
It’s a way to handle this team.
~Unknown

How do you encourage humor in your healthcare workplace? Email your comments to PLRaymond@RxForSanity.com and we'll pass them along!

Weird websites: A spoonful of flavor

What makes the medicine go down? How about watermelon, vanilla, or Red Angus Beef? Claiming “We make medicine less yucky,” FLAVORx lets customers at thousands of drug stores nationwide spice their meds with any of 42 flavors, including apple, watermelon, grape and peaches-and-cream.(FlavoRx.com). That’s good news for folks with or who care for kids who have to down icky-tasting meds.

In addition to helping flavor-fussy peeps, FLAVORx peps pets’ palates, too. The company makes meds taste like Shrimp Cocktail, Grilled Tuna, Whitefish Salad or Sardine Splendor for furry, scaly, and feathered friends, or for really carnivorous humans.

If you enjoyed this edition, please Send it to a friend or colleague!

Health news you can use: Oophorectomy and Parkinsonism

A study presented last month at the American Academy of Neurology in Miami found that surgical removal of both ovaries substantially increases a woman's risk of developing Parkinson's disease and parkinsonism - a group of diseases, including Parkinson's, characterized by tremor, stiffness, slow movements and difficulty maintaining balance. Reviewing data from 1,202 women who had both ovaries removed, 1,283 women who had one ovary removed, and an equal number of women matched for age who did not undergo ovarian surgery, investigators from the Mayo Clinic found that 43 cases of parkinsonism developed in women who had one or both ovaries removed, compared with 29 cases in women who had no ovaries removed. As the removal of both ovaries leads to a reduction in estrogen over a woman's fertile life, researchers suggest that "the estrogen produced normally by the ovaries is involved in protecting the brain during aging." (Medical News Today 04/17/05)

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Mock medical music

It's not often that MMM makes the top forty, but the recent adaptation of the Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated' by Al Yankovic (who bears a striking resemblance to my older brother Robert) not only does that but has elements of gastroenterology, genetic counseling, ED, and ENT. This one's hummable!

Tune in for songs about phlegm, aging, EDs, or eating right in later issues -- I've gotten in a motherlode of Mock Medical Music! And if you have any songs, share the lyrics with us at PLRaymond@RxForSanity.com, and we'll credit you!

If you enjoyed this edition, we encourage you to Send it to a friend or colleague!

It's time to go! (go out and dance to celebrate Nurses Week...But I sure hope that you don't party with this band!)

Gastroenterologist, broadcaster, speaker, and writer Patricia L. Raymond MD FACP FACG of Rx For Sanity is author of "Don't Jettison Medicine! Resuscitate Your Passion For The Career You Loved". DJM is a joyous workbook of thirty exercises that will help to resuscitate your passion for caregiving. It's available, along with her unique joke anthology "Colonoscopy: It'll Crack U Up!" at the Sanity Store at www.RxForSanity.com or at Amazon.com.

She is a frequent speaker and workshop leader at national and international conventions, teaching medical caregivers techniques of self-care. As host of NPR's regional live radio program, "Housecalls", she encourages our patients to step up and accept responsibility for their own health, every Friday at noon (EST). You can tune in for live streaming audio!

Attention Meeting Planners! Scheduled already into late 2005, Dr. Raymond brings her passionate message to "Health Yourself" to conventions, regional meetings and Grand Rounds. Keep her in mind- even if you have a last minute cancellation. Dr. Pat Raymond delivers high-content, interactive programs that are lots of fun. She gives away great door prizes. And, most importantly, she will make you look good. Call 757-547-0368, write PLRaymond@RxForSanity.com or visit www.RxForSanity.com for details on her programs!

Where to meet or hear Dr Raymond: When will she be in your neighborhood?

Sacramento CA 05/12 San Francisco CA 05/13 Minneapolis MN 05/15-16

Atlanta GA 07/09-12 Pittsburg PA 09/11 New Jersey 10/15 Honolulu, HA 10/28-11/3

Email for information on how to attend, or to 'piggy-back' your presentation into Dr. Raymond's travel plans, or even to take her to lunch or dinner (you drive, she'll buy)!

Tell a friend about our nifty main website, Rx For Sanity.com!	Or give your friends the whole poop about colonoscopy at ColonoscopyJoke.com!

What're you waiting for? Get Passionate HealthCare now!