Travel Advice

Traveling can be exciting and fun but preparing for travel is important to avoid having medical problems interfering with your trip. The CDC is an excellent and very detailed source for advice wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/

It is helpful to see your physician or a travel clinic at least 2 weeks prior to leaving the US to update your immunizations and get prescribed medications specific to places you are visiting. Asking your physician for sleep medication may help you to adjust faster to time zone changes and long travel routes. When you are packing for travel, bringing a carry on bag with all your medications in their labeled bottles will give you ready access to them. Consider packing powdered gatorade or another electrolyte substitute and peptobismol for a possible diarrheal illness which can shorten your sickness. Include Deet containing repellent for destinations where there are insect borne illnesses.

While abroad paying attention to avoid certain types of food such as raw vegetables, unpasteurized dairy products and inadequately cooked fish or meat can lessen illness. Try to give yourself adequate time to sleep and as the Italians suggest "La Dolce Vita"
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Getting more from your medical visit

When someone sees their physician there are things that can be done to get more from the visit. Write down the 3 most important things that you want to discuss and bring that list with you. Ask for written information about the answers that you receive. Bring someone with you if you need help understanding what the physician might say.Make another appointment to discuss any questions or results of tests done after the appointment. If you are seeing a Primary Care Physician, it helps to see that physician at least once yearly for a preventative examination. Ask that physician or their Medical Assistant if you can do lab tests fasting prior to your appointment so the results can also be discussed at your appointment. Bring other records with you to any appointments that you would like to discuss with your physician. Ask if you can make an appointment that lasts longer than the standard duration for 30 instead of 15 minutes for example.

Hopefully some of these preparatory things will allow you and your physician to get more accomplished with your next visit. http://bit.ly/dJbMwx

Lilacs

Spring brings many things to me in Seattle. Its harbinger is my birthday on March 6, then field lacrosse and shots at my backyard goal, more yardwork and now lilacs.
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Medical practice musings

I created this blog at the urging of my wife and children who are all ahead of me in using the web to learn from and communicate with the world around them.

I am a physician in private practice doing General Internal Medicine at The Polyclinic in Seattle. I have learned many things from my colleagues, family, friends but most of all the people in my practice that I serve. They are not only my patients but some of them have become dear friends.

The friendship part of the relationship has taken much longer for me to develop than for them. I feel many of them have wanted to become more than a patient to me but I have been slow to become a friend as well to them.

If any of this interests you, then I hope we can start to share more ideas about the many topics that medicine and my friends have taught me.

JohnMD
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