IHC mention

IHC was mentioned in Obama's speech to the AMA, I thought you all might want to see... even if you dont here it is.

Still, even when we do know what works, we are often not making the most of it. That's why we need to build on the examples of outstanding medicine at places like the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where the quality of care for cystic fibrosis patients shot up after the hospital began incorporating suggestions from parents. And places like Tallahassee Memorial Health Care, where deaths were dramatically reduced with rapid response teams that monitored patients' conditions and “multidisciplinary rounds” with everyone from physicians to pharmacists. And places like the Geisinger Health system in rural Pennsylvania and the Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, where high-quality care is being provided at a cost well below average. These are islands of excellence that we need to make the standard in our health care system.

And here are a few mentions of prevention...

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.
It also means cutting down on all the junk food that is fueling an epidemic of obesity, putting far too many Americans, young and old, at greater risk of costly, chronic conditions. That's a lesson Michelle and I have tried to instill in our daughters with the White House vegetable garden that Michelle planted. And that's a lesson that we should work with local school districts to incorporate into their school lunch programs.
Building a health care system that promotes prevention rather than just managing diseases will require all of us to do our part. It will take doctors telling us what risk factors we should avoid and what preventive measures we should pursue. And it will take employers following the example of places like Safeway that is rewarding workers for taking better care of their health while reducing health care costs in the process. If you're one of the three quarters of Safeway workers enrolled in their “Healthy Measures” program, you can get screened for problems like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you score well, you can pay lower premiums. It's a program that has helped Safeway cut health care spending by 13 percent and workers save over 20 percent on their premiums. And we are open to doing more to help employers adopt and expand programs like this one.
Our federal government also has to step up its efforts to advance the cause of healthy living. Five of the costliest illnesses and conditions – cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung disease, and strokes – can be prevented. And yet only a fraction of every health care dollar goes to prevention or public health. That is starting to change with an investment we are making in prevention and wellness programs that can help us avoid diseases that harm our health and the health of our economy.

*on a side note I am still not an Obama fan, but I thought I would include the excerpts since I am working on a memo summarizing the speech right now.

So, Pete and I spent the weekend in Rome with his wife and her mom and sister. They actually left on Thursday night and spent Friday in Florence, but we all met up on Saturday morning in Rome. Rome is officially my favorite city ever! There is so much to do and see there, two days just did not do it justice - I guess I'll just have to go back someday. Here are some pics from our escapades:


This is the view overlooking the Vatican City and most of central Rome from the top of St. Peter's Basillica. The Sitine chapel is the dull brown colored building jutting out from the bottom left hand corner of the photo. Below are Michelangelo's frescoes inside the chapel - amazing! Sorry about the poor quality, there was not a lot of light in there, and we actually weren't allowed to take pics, so I had to take 'em on the sly.

The two pics below are are of some art work in the Vatican Museum. I spent two hours in the musuem and only saw a fraction of the entire place - again, I'll just have to go back again someday.

Above is the cool looing exit out of the Vatican Museum. Below is a view looking out of the entrance area of the Pantheon (which was amazing!); and below that is the inside of the Pantheon.

The Colloseum, in all it's majesty:

And my favorite: St. Peter's Basillica. This place is huge!!! Below is a view of the altar looking up at the dome/capula. We attended Mass here on Sunday which was quite an experience.

Where are Judy and Alina?

Has anyone seen, heard from, or talked to Judy and Alina? It's like they dropped off the planet.

Where's Waldo?

In this case, Camille is Waldo. She's definitely in here somewhere. I'll give you a clue, she's in section 336.

Big News: My Family Has Arrived! Home finally feels like home again and we've begun to explore the area. The east coast is so much more interesting when there's someone to share it with! Pete and Mark - at least you have each other, right?

So, Friday night Sara and Tanner and I went to Family Night at the Orioles versus Braves game at Camden Yards in downtown Baltimore. It was Tanner's first ball game and we ate peanuts and cheered for the orange team. Little did he know, but his first game was in the very stadium where Cal Ripkin, Jr. set a record of 2,632 consecutive games (breaking Lou Gehrig's 1939 record). Yay!

Camden Yards is named because the field is situated on what used to be the rail yard of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Camden Station (you can see the old warehouse behind the scoreboard).

He enjoyed the game (as evidenced here by the bubbles), all except every time anyone scored a run he cried. We think it was because the loudspeakers were directly above us, so we gave him some gold beads to distract him. They were "less effective" and we left a few points later.


This is an ivory chess set that some President used to play with. We spent Saturday in DC for Sara's first time since she was little. I realized that we had a sweeeeet hotel location when we went for our Advocacy Summit. Parking is expensive! We paid $20 for the day (9 hours). I finally got to see Abe's hat and the Star Spangled Banner and we spent the rest of the day in the Holocaust Museum.


It was also nice to see DC with foliage. Really pretty, but much easier to get lost. You didn't really need a map in the winter because all the monuments are visible no matter where you go!


This was at a really cool marble outdoor amphitheatre thingy by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. If you go onto the stage you pretty much get baked by the sun reflecting. We realized that's why the guards are issued sunglasses!

Conversations on the Beach

I promised Camille I would post my conversation I had with a Bajan (Barbadian) guy on the beach last Saturday as I was laying out. I figured that you would all enjoy it, so here it goes...

"Hi darlin'."
"Hi."
"Are you enjoying yourself today?"
"Yes, I am. Thanks."
"First time to the islands?"
"Yes"
"Are you from Sweden?"
"No."
"Are you from Germany?"
"No."
"Are you from Holland?"
"No."
"Where are you from?" (it would have been easier to ask that right off)
"The US."
"Oh, you're an American girl."
"What are you doin' here? Vacation?"
"No, I'm working."
.....
"Why don't you go for a swim, you look hot?"
"I will, but I'm kinda tired. It feels good just to lie here."
"Why you be tired? You be out partying last night?"
"No."
"Nah, you be partyin'"
"No, I don't party."
"For real??"
"Yes."
"So you don't drink?"
"No."
"You don't smoke?"
"No."
"Why not??"
"Cause I don't want to. It's not good for you. It's bad for your health." (even promoting public health on the beach)
"Well I don't smoke, but I'm a social drinker, I like my beer." (and then named some variety)
"Oh, well I wouldn't know."
"You don't...girl, you are the craziest girl I've met. But whatevah, you can do what you like. Do you want me to introduce you to some guys? You want a Bajan boyfriend to keep you company?"
"No, I'm good, thanks."
"You sure? I know of some, and I'm not talking for myself...but I know lots of guys."
"Uh, I have an American boyfriend."
"Girl, that's ok. I understand. But he's not here. How long you here for?"
"2 months."
"That's a long time. What are you going to do?"
"Well I'm working and coming here to the beach."
"No, I mean that's a long time to go..."
"Uh, like I said, I have plenty to do."
"No, that's not what I mean. I mean that's a long time go without...you know...I mean sexual."
"Oh, well, I don't do that either."
"What?"
"Yeah, I'm not into that."
"Girl, you really are crazy, but you can do what you like. If you want a Bajan boyfriend, just let me know."
"Thanks."

So there's the conversation. I might have left out some, but that's the jist of it. It was pretty funny to see his reaction when I told him all the things I didn't do. Just to see how strange it was for this guy that I didn't want to party or find a Bajan boyfriend, I read today in a report that in the Caribbean over 64% of males between the ages of 15-17 are sexual active and the number is not that much lower for females. Also, the Caribbean has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, outside of Sub Saharan Africa. Wow, lots of issues to tackle there. Our work is never done.

I'll let you know of any more fun beach conversations I have.

Something Not Quite Right With the World

Something is not quite right with the world, what you ask? Well lots of things but I am only addressing one issue (on this blog). So an explanation. I am part of a "health policy" team at CDF. We have two lawyers (preceptors) one law student/MSSW, one teach for america teacher, and me- the lonely MPH student. Obviously there are quite a few skill sets in that bunch and out of the 5 of us I am the only one that can use excel... so I have become the data person... do you see a problem with this? Granted the data is nothing like the data John and Camille are dealing with but hm.... not sure how reliable our results are going to be. Okay i am being dramatic, and I did change things so now I am 100% sure I can handle producing the results they want,  I am just making graphs- no stats thank goodness, and yes pete my color scheme skills are coming in handy here, you think the graph we made for Mike's policy analysis was snazzy now my stylish graphs are getting published who knew I had an eye for matching... no one, maybe I should thank Dr. Merrill for those skills I worked on for his data project... 

Oh yes and the most exciting news of the day- our kitchen flooded yesterday- that is the story you really want to hear but sadly I posted it on my blog. 

Oh yeah and our other exciting news (yeah you keep thinking it is something more exciting than it actually is) we went to church on sunday and we met another BYU intern couple! Yay for provo people!

PS John thanks a million for your help- I used your spreadsheet and went and explained it to my preceptor and she looked at me then at the spreadsheet and then we decided to change things so lawyers can understand them- hence the pretty graphs and no stats. 

Desmond is my homeboy

So Pete and I got an email at work last Friday telling us about a free conference on social change that was taking place at the international conference center just down the road from WHO. So we headed over there Saturday morning to see what all the hoopla was about and caught the keynote speaker for the day: Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He spoke about how to effectively resolve conflicts and pulled from some of his vast experiences in Ireland, Palestine, South Africa, and quite a few more places. The rest of the conference was alright. They showed a bunch of documentaries, some really cool, some not so much, but the Archbishop was definitely the highlight of the weekend!