It is a lovely sunny day in Seattle, and wouldn’t you know, as soon as the weather turns nice I’m outta here. Off to California today, and I’m going to be busy so I may not post again until I return on Wednesday. But rest assured, there still is a nursing shortage and the talking heads still think that it can be solved by way of mass production of RNs–even if it means resorting to robo patients in order to train them.

Maybe they should watch Modern Times? Rent it from Neflix? Or read Brave New World and see just where assembly lines can get you.

Oh, you didn’t know that was what FDA stood for? Fools and Dorks Association, F**kers and Derelicts Anonymous…take your pick.

Here’s more news on the FDA. I still think the Chinese have the right idea, because someone or something needs to put a fire under their asses. The FDA doesn’t think it needs to respond to the pet food scandal, or to even respond to questions about their incompetence. They’re hoping that it will just disappear, and then they can along on their merry little corrupt ways.

From the North County Gazette:

A Congressional committee has given the U.S. Food and Drug Administration until June 1 to produce requested records concerning drug and food safety in the United States or they will subpoena them.

Rep. John Dingell, (D-MI) chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Rep. Bart Stupak, (D-MI) chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, told Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that the FDA has failed to respond to requests of the committee and in some instances, has produced redacted records to the committee without any prior consultation on such redactions.

“Since the 110th Congress began, Committee has requested briefings, documents and information regarding a range of problems with the operation of the Food and Drug Administration”, the committee’s letter to HHS said. “With the exception of the January 23 request regarding the generic drug approval process and the provision of two food safety briefings, all of the other requests form this committee have been, at best, only partially answered and several have been ignored altogether. The requests for documents and information have been outstanding for one to three months”.

“The delays and quality of responses to the Committee’s requests concerning FDA are unacceptable”, the committee told the FDA. “With the exception of patient identifiers in medical records, all documents produced to the committee are to be unredacted”.

The FDA claims its been “as responsive as possible” to the document requests.

Well, maybe the FDA isn’t lying. Maybe their “response” is all that they are capable of. Otherwise, they will have to answer to all of the industries that they are trying to protect, and perhaps return some of the gold that they’re getting to grease their pockets?

Or maybe they are really are just too dumb to under the meaning of the word “response.”

Perhaps our own beloved FDA would shape up if there was actually something to fear, like some form of punishment for being corrupt, ignoring safety, and allowing thousands of people (and pets) to become ill and die because they don’t want to interfere with the financial well being of the industries they are supposed to be regulating.

This is what happens in China. Maybe we should ship our own sleazy FDA officials over there and let the Chinese take care of them.

From CBSNews:

The Chinese government has taken the tough-on-corruption stand to its ultimate conclusion, sentencing to death the former head of the food and drug administration for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines. At least 10 deaths have been linked to the scandal. According to The Associated Press:

The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods — from pet food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.

Maybe if we locked our own FDA officials in a dungeon and forced them to consume all of the toxic crap that they allow in food, and consume all of the now-recalled drugs that they allowed to slip through in the face of damning evidence, things might change over there. Or force them to pay for medical treatment for people and pets harmed by their inactions and efforts to ensure high profits to the industry.

Although, I think the best option is to send them on a one way shuttle to Uranus. And give them some Vioxx and toxic pet food for the trip.

I got a comment on my May 20 entry about the robo patient–a person who clearly thought that I should go back and read the newspaper article and reducate myself as to the wonders of caring for a polyurethane patient–as opposed to the biological variety.

Why do people comment if they don’t read what they are commenting on? Part of her comment read as follows:

The scenarios that the students will be practicing emulate real life with the exception that if a student makes a mistake no one dies. The medical simulation mannequins provide students with an introduction experiences that they will likely face at some point in their professional career. I think that the 25% time spent in emercency simulation is an experience that most students would other not have before launching their career.

True on two counts. No one dies if you pierce the robo patient’s carotid artery. And medical simulation can be a valuable experience. But here’s where both I and the original article differ. This is not about extra training given to nursing students to deal with emergency situations. The article clearly stated that the 25% was not extra time. It was IN LIEU of regular clinical time. And the sim is not to teach them about emergency situations, it was just plain old patient care.

I know a lot of nurses get testy when sacred territory is challenged, but please, read what I write before getting your knickers in a twist. And read the original article, not what you think it says.

More scary news from the front lines. And yes, scary the way the “experts” are trying to “solve” the late great nursing crisis. We already know that they believe in the Henry Ford ideology of assembly line and mass production. Well, now they’ve found a way to help do that.

From the Marin Independent Journal:

The students were demonstrating the potential of a new state-of-the-art simulation center at the College of Marin’s Indian Valley campus. Students at the College of Marin, Dominican University and Sonoma State University will use the robotic mannequins to hone their skills - just as prospective pilots now use flight simulators. And working nurses at local hospitals will also use the mannequins to practice skills they use only during rare emergencies.

So at first it seems all well and good. Fancy high powered (and very expensive, I may add) robotic patients are going to be used to help student nurses hone their skills. Great, I don’t have a problem with that, and in fact, they will be quite useful for experienced staff to use for brushing up on skills that may be getting a little rusty. The use of robots is okay as long as they are going to be used IN ADDITION to normal clinical hours. But guess what? Read on.

Officials at the schools say the simulation center will help ease the county’s nursing shortage. Currently, nursing students must log hundreds of hours in a clinical setting before graduating, and there is a paucity of medical facilities available in which to do that. Students can fulfill up to 25 percent of that requirement using simulation equipment. As a result, school officials estimate they will be able to accommodate a minimum of 20 percent more students.

The plan is not to use these robots to enrich the experience, but to actually take the place of actual clinical time with patients. Up to a full quarter of clinical practice is going to be on dolls (yes, dolls, because that’s what they are), and knowing how these systems often work, I would guess that the average student will eventually be getting about half of their clinical hours in this fashion.

Clinical skills go far beyond just sticking a needle in an arm, or even listening to a simulated dummy scream in pain, or piss on you. At the end of the day, everyone knows that it is a doll. We used to play with baby dolls that cried and pissed when I was little. This is just a grown up version.

A major part of honing skills is doing it in a live environment. A bustling hospital setting, having to answer questions from the patient, having to explain what you’re doing to the patient, dealing with family members, and so on. The clinical time in nursing schools is already too short as it is, and the vast majority of new grads enter the workplace painfully unprepared to do anything more than hide. Nursing school doesn’t prepare students for the real world, it prepares them for a fantasy nursey land that exists in an alternate reality. And now some genius has brainstormed the grand idea of curtailing their already inadequate clinical time by at least 25%, and having them play gaa-gaa goo-goo with dolls.

Cool, huh.

And let’s look a little more at some other realities. While Marin County doesn’t have a dire nursing shortage, one reason that it will increase in the future is that Marin is just too expensive to live in. Even though the payrates in SF Bay Area are very good, the average house price in Marin is $900,000. You should see the beautiful shoebox that you can buy for that. It may even have an outhouse and running water. Marin is difficult to get to by public transportation (no BART service), ferries run periodically but not on any schedule to accomodate most nurses and then there’s the question of getting from ferry terminal to job–and the traffic over the bridges and freeways can be awful. The Bay Area has no shortage of places to work, so many may opt to live in a less pricey place and get a job closer to home.

But like most articles on the nursing shortage, this type of real live problem is ignored. Duh, even if you mass produce RNs and train them with Betsy-Wetsy dolls in lieu of real people, they still have to live somewhere once they graduate. Right now, while they’re in school, they’re probably living with mommy and daddy. What happens when they graduate?

Okay, here’s my excuse for continuing to write about Jerry Falwell. Yesterday I tied him in with AIDS, and the shameful diatrobes that came out of his mouth in relation to that disease.

But this is funny. The great Jerry Falwell, desperately trying to make amends for his despicable rantings and searing hatred that he exhibted in the name of Jesus, has had his last hurrah. Poor Jerry tried to donate his organs. And they were all rejected.

From Counterpunch:

That great bulk, Jerry Falwell, has eaten his last family-size bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Yes, Jerry has ordered his last tent-sized silk suit, taken his last bag of cash from lonely old ladies, and ordered his last truckload of cheap, merchandising Bibles with his picture stamped on the cover. Gone on to his reward, as they say.

He donated his organs, the only gesture of kindness recorded in his adult life, but they were all rejected, except for the spleen, reportedly large enough to serve three.

I purposely misspelled it. Or how about Jerry Foolwell? Or Fartwell?

The expression of “not speaking badly of the dead,” seems to be one of those things that only applies to certain people. If I didn’t like the guy in life, and had nothing good to say about him, why should it change that he’s dead? Do we not discuss the cruel atrocities that Hitler and Stalin committed just because they’re dead? Should we not speak ill of them? Should we speak kindly of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy?

Jerry Falwell was a very disturbed man who should have been confined to a mental institution many years ago. It would have been the most humane thing to do, and would have greatly benefited our nation. What stands out in my mind, other than Fartwell wanting to strip women of their reproductive rights, keep as submissive to men like him and barefoot and eternally pregnant, was his treatment of people with AIDS.

This is a quote that I found, but I don’t have a link to it. However, it says it all, about so-called Christians like Fartwell and their regard for life. Or how they can even consider themselves to be followers of Jesus.

“As I remember Reverend Falwell’s life, I also remember all of the families of people who have died of AIDS,” said Joe Solmonese, Human Rights Campaign. “Reverend Falwell’s legacy is not about the tenants of Jesus’ ministry such as healing the sick and standing with the disenfranchised but about shunning and ridiculing those who have suffered and died of AIDS and their families. Many faith leaders today are moving away from his divisive approach and toward the compassion and inclusiveness that Jesus modeled every day of his ministry.”

You see, Jesus didn’t discriminate. He sat with the sinners and the lepers, and didn’t much care to hang out with the neocons of his day. When Jesus saw someone in need, he didn’t ask, “Hey man, how did you get that disease? Were you–gasp–fornicating with another man?” No, Jesus simply asked, “How can I help?”

What goes around comes around. Jerry Fartwell was a nasty, bigoted, hateful, cruel and thoroughly despicable person. He was basically ground scum, a parasite on this planet. And right now, I am certain that he is experiencing everything that he preached. For all eternity, wherever it is that scum gets sent to, Jerry Fartwell will be in pain and dire need of medical attention, but will be denied healthcare; he will be scorned and shunned and ridiculed; he will be treated like an outcast; he will have no rights; he will be in constant want. Basically, Fartwell is going to experience an eternal hell like he never imagined and it will be all of his own doing.

RIP Jerry. I’m so glad that you no longer walk the planet.

HPV again. I’m really tired of this subject, but I just had to comment on an article by Jane Brody that appeared in the New York Times this morning with the lofty title “HPV Vaccine: Few Risks, Many Benefits.”

It sounds wonderful, how Brody enthusiastically goes over all the benefits of the vaccines and I totally agree that parents and others who think that this vaccine is going to turn young girls into sex-crazed nymphomaniacs need some psychological counseling. But what Brody conveniently leaves out of her plea for the vaccine is the M issue. Making Gardasil manadatory, which is where the controversy rests.

“Dr.” Jane writes: Despite these facts, the vaccine, sold by Merck as Gardasil, has been mired in controversy, and many parents remain wary about using it for the girls and young women it was meant to protect.”

But duh, the real controversy is never mentioned. The fact that Merck would make billions if this vaccine was forced on young girls, as a preventive treatment for a disease that affects very few people in this country. And the glaring factor that HPV is not a contagious disease, it is not spread in classrooms, shopping malls, restaurants, or Tupperware parties. The disease is not going to be spread from six grader to six grader, unless the kids get an orgy break during their school day. Vaccines are mandatory for diseases that are airborne, and can spread quickly through a population. The only exception to that is tetanus, but because it is spread through rusted metal, soil, and other objects that kids tend to touch a lot, it has been added to the bunch.

Our friend Dr. Jane makes no distinction in her passionate plea for the HPV vaccine. And certainly, the vaccine should be available for those who want it but making it mandatory is a whole other ballgame. It’s like saying that mammograms should be mandatory for women over the age of 40, because early detection of breast cancer can reduce mortality. So therefore, you have to go and get your mammogram or you’ll be fired from your job.

Dr. Jane also addresses the cost of the vaccine. She makes no mention as to why it has to be so pricey, but instead points out how expensive it is to treat HPV infections.

Finally, objections have been raised about costs. This vaccine is not cheap. Each dose costs $120, or $360 for the three doses needed for full protection, far more than any other commonly used vaccine. If a booster shot is needed later, that could mean another $120. If the vaccine is made mandatory, states might have to pay for immunizing girls not covered by insurance.

Still, HPV infections are far more costly. As noted in the March issue of The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: “The annual burden of cervical HPV-related disease ranges from $2.25 billion to $4.6 billion in the United States. The annual burden of cervical cancer ranges from $181.5 million to $363 million.”

If you notice, Janey does not give us the cost of immunizing every single 12 year old girl in the US. How come? She gives a vague comment about how HPV infections are more costly, but where are her data? What will it cost to vaccinate every 12 year girl, every year? Any clues?

I can’t find national data at the moment, but just for the state of Illinois, as an example, forced vaccination of 80,000-90,000 11 year-old school girls would cost of at least $28 million every year. At least, probably more. That is one state, and these girls will still need Pap smears. Plus add on an extra $100 or so for the “administrative” fees that accompany everything.

But let’s use the $28 million as a ballpark figure and muliply it by 50 for each state. That’s $1.4 billion in vaccine costs alone, not counting the cost of a booster. I would guess if we took real numbers, it would probably come close to the lower end cost of treating HPV disease (the ones cited above). Now, this is just the cost of vaccinating every 12 year old girl in the US. What about gay guys, who spread it around to eachother? They will still be adding to the cost burden. The gardasil vaccine also doesn’t protect against all strains, and it doesn’t protect against all cases of cervical cancer. Ooops, another minor omission on the part of Dr. Jane.

The costs cited above probably include procedures which would still be needed even with the vaccine. Women will still be getting repeat Pap smears for questionable results, HPV related or not. Women who smoke, have HIV, etc, are still going to be having cervical problems. The Gardasil is not a cure-all, and is not going to eliminate all diseases and problems “down there.”

Basically, taking all things together, the vaccine is not going to save any money. It may even be more costly.

And how will girls know that they need a booster shot? That is another argument she makes in the story, that if the vaccine doesn’t last forever (and we are rapidly learning that many of them don’t), are girls/women really going to go and get a booster? Not very likely. Very few adults get vaccinated, except if they are a captive audience in a nursing home, or about to embark with the Peace Corps and a cholera vaccine is mandatory.

So the end result is that we will have spent oodles of money vaccinating millions of sixth grade girls, but by the time they reach 25 or 30, their protection is gone.

Our nice Dr. Jane also forgets to mention that vaccination with Gardasil does not take the place of Pap tests, so that cost still stands as well. The annual cost of treating a woman who has cervical cancer is $20,255 if the cancer has not spread beyond the cervix, $36,912 if it has spread to other parts of the body. There are only about 3,700 annual cervical cancer deaths in the United States, less than 1% of all total cancer deaths and the 6th leading cause of cancer deaths in women. So why should the vaccine should be forced on all women?

Finally, dear sweet Jane also fails to mention that in the vast number of cases, HPV is harmless. You contract it, your immune system fights it off, and its gone. No damage incurred, no cervical disease, no cancer.

While she does make some good points, I felt like I was reading an advertorial for Merck. Omitting essential facts is as bad as falsifying data.

Nurses should be counseling parents and teens about the vaccine, but really need to point out all aspects of it. And considering the number of vaccines that children are inundated with, and the lack of knowledge that we have about the long term effects of mass vaccination on the immature immune system of children (yes, this is an area of great controversy) I think we need to reserve childhood vaccination to the most serious and contagious diseases. I just don’t think HPV is one of them, especially at this price.

Sorry Merck. Better luck next time.

To all you mothers out there, both of human children and fuzzy ones–hope you’re getting royal treatment.

But if you believe Florence Nightingale (her again!) and medical historian Victor Robinson, motherhood is very similar to nursing (the profession, not breastfeeding). Nightingale vehemently opposed the attempts of English nurses to organize, have licensing exams, and to have a license to practice. She states that “nurses cannot be registered and examined any more than mothers.” Well, considering some of the mothers I’ve had to deal with, maybe exams and licensing wouldn’t be a bad thing. We might end up with a lot less screwed up kids, but that’s for another discussion. Basically, she equated nursing with motherhood, as an “instinctive” sort of skill. Moms comfort crying babies, give children baths, put a band-aid on a boo-boo, and I guess in FN’s eyes, nurses did the same thing. Only they had to follow doctor’s orders as to when was the appropriate time to kiss the boo-boo.

Victor Robinson, who was a physician and a writer, echoed that sentiment in his book White Caps, the Story of Nursing (1946) when he wrote, “Woman is an instinctive nurse taught by Mother Nature.” Hmm…even for 1946, that was pretty backward thinking, considering the skill and expertise shown by wartime nurses. It was more than just smoothing sheets and emptying a bed pan. Just to note, Vic also thought it was marvelous that the numbers of female doctors had been decreasing (thanks to efforts by the AMA no doubt) in the early 20th century. He felt that nursing was certainly a much more suitable career for women.

Just like moms–long hours, little to no compensation, no respect from society…. Funny how he should think that a lowly paid job with little chance for advancement (remember, this is 1946) was the best thing for women, whereas medicine, along with its good pay, prestige and great opportunities for advancement and independence, was not. I guess Victor never considered male nurses in the grand scheme of things, or the fact that learning anatomy and physiology has little to do with maternal instinct.

Still Florence Nightingale’s birthday. I celebrated by going to Whole Foods and then to the drugstore to buy a new super sonic toothbrush. Cool. What do you think about that, Flo?

Anyway, this is the second part of my rendition of the life and times of Florence Nightingale. I decided to do this in a Q & A format, just to make it easier to address some of the most urban of the urban legends concerning Ms. Nightingale.

Was Florence Nightingale a feminist?

This question has been bounced around and been around the block more than a few times. Some say yes, others no. I say no.

While FN was unhappy with the status quo, and indeed, who could blame her, she never stepped out beyond the confines of her day. She was very much an upper class Victorian woman, and while she believed that women such as herself should be able to pursue more than just a suitable marriage and producing miniature Victorians, she never really pushed for women’s rights. She only wanted the freedom to do be able to do something useful with her life, and she wanted to be a nurse. But concepts such as careers for women, equal rights, equal pay, etc., never crossed her agenda.

And FN was certainly no 19th century Che Guevera. As much as she wanted to be a nurse, she would have never dreamed of disobeying her parents and going off on her own and find a nursing job. For one thing, Daddy would have had a fit and probably cut off her allowance. And poor Florence, image living on a pitiful nurse’s salary. Here was a woman who had probably never even brushed her own hair, or boiled the water for her tea. She probably wouldn’t have even know what to do if she dared leave her own front door unescorted.

FN was 30 years old before her parents finally relented and allowed her to go to Germany to study nursing, under strict supervision. And the nursing school that she created, and her vision for nursing in general, fit right into Victorian ideals. A revolutionary this woman was not.

In the mind of FN, she imagined that the women coming to study nursing would be all upper class, and interested in fulfilling a sacred calling. What a shock when middle and lower class girls began knocking on the door, seeing nurses as a welcome means to earn a living, at a time when options were exceedingly few for women. In response to this rude awakening, the St. Thomas training school set up a double tier; lady probationers, who were the upper class chicks that Flo hung around with, and the nurse probationers. The lady probationers were groomed to be the nursing leaders of tomorrow, while the nurse probabationers were groomed to do the scut work.

Men were excluded entirely, and this double tier system replicated itself in the U.S. Only here, however, the system largely excluded not only men, but minorities. Some schools were a little kinder and set up quotas for Jews, blacks, Roman Catholics, Indians, etc. Basically, the goal was to fill the nursing ranks with white Protestant women, and even today, American nurses are still primarily white women.

Did she die of syphillis?

I don’t really know how that started, but it is unlikely. Most probably, FN contracted brucellosis in the Crimea, and that was probably the reason why she spent the last half century of her life in almost total seclusion. And anyway, some think that she was a lesbian, so it doesn’t sound like she would have been too keen to sleep around with men.

Did FN help or hinder nursing as a profession?

Both. She helped make nursing respectable, but at the same time, did her best to destroy the notion that it was a profession. FN had no clue as to what life was like for the average woman, especially those with limited means. She had this idea that nursing was a religious calling, and that the women called to it should put aside such silly ideas as licensing exams, competence, scientific training, decent pay, or being able to support oneself. Better to starve to death, or sleep in the gutter because you can’t pay your rent—those were better options than tainting nursing by calling it a profession, and unionizing.

FN lived in the lap of luxury from birth until death, completely supported by her family’s money. Nurses, she seemed to think, all had rich fathers to support them, and therefore all could walk around dreamy-eyed and play angel.

Her desire to keep men out also turned nursing into women’s work, which was not highly thought of. Translation–low pay, low in respect, long in hours.

Why are Nightingale’s other accomplishments basically ignored?

Good question. The same thing is true for Clara Barton, who tends to listed as an “American nurse” or the “American Florence Nightingale.”

I have no idea why this nurse tag predominates in both FN and Clara Barton. In the case of Barton, she was a schoolteacher, then a patent clerk, and when the Civil War broke out, she loaded up a wagon and took it out to the battlefield because men were dying and the bureaucracy was too slow in getting them supplies. She never studied nursing, or claimed any desire to help the sick and needy. After the war, she helped locate missing soliders for several years, and then eventually went on to head up the American Red Cross. All in all, she spent about 3 years doing nursing, if you can call it that. That is 3 years out of a very long life, and yet Barton is called a nurse to the exclusion of all else she did.

Same with FN. Granted, FN did want to be a nurse and care for the sick, but again, she spent only abut 3 years of her 90 year lifetime actually doing patient care. She spent the rest of her life as a reformer, architect, statistician, health educator, and adviser to the military. Her accomplishments were huge, but yet they are forgotten and most people have no idea that FN did anything more than walk around with lamp and “place a cool hand on a fevered brow.”

I’ll take it a bit further, and probably ignite the wrath of the nurse police, but I think her later accomplishments were the far more important ones. She redesigned healthcare and hospital systems, and began the concept of keeping real health statistics–as I said in the previous post, she developed the idea that social phenomena could be objectively measured and subjected to mathematical analysis.

Now I’ll really get in trouble, but perhaps nursing might have developed quite differently had FN not stuck her nose into it. There were already people who thought that nurse should be trained, and indeed, FN herself went to a school in Germany. Nursing would have evolved with or without her, and perhaps if she hadn’t been around, a different system would have taken root. Men, for example, have been nursing since Biblical times, and there were male nurses during FN’s time. Poet Walt Whitman worked as nurse during the Civil War.

As medicine evolved, and the need for trained nurses grew, it may have been a whole other ball game. But I guess we’ll never know.

Happy birthday, Florence.

So, as every good nurse should know, today is Florence Nightingale’s birthday. The most loved, loathed, revered, and ridiculedperson in the great annals of nursing history. Also the most misunderstood, and I should say, overstudied and both over and underestimated.

Today is Florence Nightingale’s birthday. She was born May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. I guess her parents didn’t have too much imagination in nameing their daughter. There are some great links all over the Internet about old Flo, who is nearing her 200th birthday. Some are the sappy sort, which go on and on about her saintliness, and how she saved all of those men in the Crimea (which she didn’t, by the way), and how she was the “first” real nurse (like no one had been doing any nursing for the first few millenniums of human existance), and she revolutionized nursing–well, that she did, for better and worse. Intermingled are some really good in-depth and critical accounts of her life and work, which allow us to see past that sickeningly sweet image that she has unfortunately been coated with.

But for now, let’s take a brief look at Florence. Aside from the iconic nurse, she was a brilliant mathematician. She designed military medical facilities, and played a pivotal role in recreating hospital architecture. Her first act on returning to England in 1858, following the Crimean War, was not to start a nursing school as is commonly believed, but to contribute to a massive report to the government on the sanitary condition of military hospitals.

This was a rather personal mission for her. You see, despite all the hype and glory, Florence was not responsible for bringing down the death toll in the Crimea. Yes, her nurses scrubbed and washed the soldiers, changed their beds, gave them nourishing food to eat, but that only made them more comfortable and did not lead to a lower death toll. The majority were dying of disease, not of their wounds.

From the BBC:

But if one looks at the historical record more carefully, one begins to realise that, despite Nightingale’s work at Scutari, the death-rate among the soldiers did not begin to fall; on the contrary, it began to rise. Historians are now waking up to the shocking truth that the death toll at Nightingale’s hospital was higher than at any other hospital in the East, and that her lack of knowledge of the disastrous sanitary conditions at Scutari was responsible. During her first winter at Scutari, 4,077 soldiers died there, ten times more from illnesses such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery, than from battle wounds. Conditions at the hospital were fatal to the men that Nightingale was trying to nurse: they were packed like sardines into an unventilated building on top of defective sewers.

As Hugh Small, author of a recent study of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, has written, this pioneering woman was effectively presiding over ‘a death camp’. A sanitary commission, sent out by Palmerston’s government in March 1855, almost six months after Nightingale’s arrival at Scutari, flushed out the sewers and improved the ventilation, thereby dramatically reducing the mortality rate. However, Nightingale herself continued to attribute responsibility for the high number of deaths to inadequate nutrition and supplies, and to the army’s sending of men across the Black Sea to Scutari when they were already half-dead from exposure.

It was only on her return to Britain, when she began collecting evidence to present before the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army, that Nightingale changed her mind, reaching the painful conclusion that most of the soldiers at her hospital had been killed by bad sanitation, due to her ignorance. She had helped them to die in cleaner surroundings and greater comfort, but she had not saved their lives.

Florence Nightingale’s ignorance kept them dying. This is interesting because although reports conflict, it is believed that she never believed in “germs.” She supposedly refused to look through microscopes, and considered illness to be due to something more mysterious. This would mesh in with her steadfast belief that malnutrition and lack of soap were killing the men in Scutari. And this experience also may have lead for her fanatical beliefs in “fresh air” for patients–to open windows and not keep the sick in sealed up rooms for fear of a draft. I kind of think that patients in modern hospitals would be well to get a little fresh air and sunshine, but that’s another story.

So her guilt led to her become the foremost expert on hospital design, to maximize efficiency and health and wellbeing. And this was the first thing she dove into after the war, before she ever considered creating a training school for nurses.

Now, let’s get into the obvious. The lady with the lamp. The ministering angel. Yada, yada, yada. While the myth and legend spread like wildfire, it is quite the opposite of the real situation in the Crimea. Florence did not spend her time there floating through corridors, cooling fevered brows with just the touch her hand, and healing the battered soldiers with her sweet smile.

From the History News Network:

Early reports in the press, soon swelled by an extraordinary outpouring of verse and song dedicated to the romantic heroine, portrayed her as a ministering angel, a hands-on nurse, personally attending to soldiers as they lay on mile upon mile of mattresses. Yet, although she sometimes spent 10 or 12 hours a day in the first weeks working on the wards, her principal role was administrative, supervising the nurses rather than directly nursing the sick.

What is recognised less often than it should be is that Nightingale stands as the figurehead for 229 women who nursed in Turkey and the Crimea from 1854 to 1856, most of them in hospitals that stood outside Nightingale’s jurisdiction. Of these, only 17 served for the duration; the others were dismissed for a variety of forms of misconduct, including drunkenness, or were invalided out, resigned, or simply died. Nevertheless, these 229 demonstrated that women could play a decisive role in the Army in wartime.

She was also said to be a strong willed woman, who was often less than pleasant and difficult to work with. And that makes sense. If Florence had been a docile sweet Victorian maiden, she wouldn’t have accomplished anything. The military would have squished her like a cockroach. It took a strong person to crack the military’s perception that nursing was not needed, that “real” soliders should suffer and if necessary, die for the glory of Queen and country.

Finally, Florence was a brilliant and accomplished statistician. She may have been influenced by Quetelet in Belgium, but she developed the idea that social phenomena could be objectively measured and subjected to mathematical analysis. She was an innovator in the collection, tabulation, interpretation, and graphical display of descriptive statistics.

In 1840, Florence begged her parents “to let her study mathematics instead of doing worsted work and practicing quadrilles.” As you can see, she was not a good upper class Victorian daughter. Her mother “did not approve, home duties were not to be neglected for mathematics.” She assumed that her daughter’s destiny was marriage, “and what use were mathematics to a married woman?” Her father, who loved math and had communicated that love to his daughter, nevertheless urged her to study more subjects that were more appropriate for a woman, such as “history or philosophy, natural or moral. Florence expressed her preference for mathematics by saying, “I don’t think I shall succeed so well in anything that requires quickness as in what requires only work.” Her parents finally granted permission.

Interesting how science and math have always been seen as more masculine, while history and philosophy more suited to women. I suppose that is was assumed that studying science and math takes some analytical ability, as opposed to just memorizing facts or contemplating, and the female brain just wasn’t equipped for that.

Unfortunately, Florence rarely gets any credit for these accomplishments, and instead, much of her contributions to society are buried in that tiresome image of the lady with lamp.

I’ll write more later on Florence. The juicy stuff is yet to come…well, I consider it more juicy, because her myth indicates that she created nursing a respectable profession, when it fact, it was the farthest thing from her mind. She also wasn’t keen on women’s rights, but primarily the right of bored and intelligent upper class ladies such as herself to be allowed to do something constructive with their lives. Lower class women were already busy enough trying to survive and eek out a living, and Florence was not concerned with their welfare.

Yes, these really are suggestions being offered by Nursingworld.com on how you can show your appreciation for nurses, and how nurses can show the world how great they are.

Hold a special celebration or reception to recognize a nurse or several nurses in your community. These nurses could be honored for heroic acts, years of service to the community, exemplary courage, or their commitment to the nursing profession over the years. Is that like honoring the angel of mercy? You know, honor the nurse who sacrificed for her profession and employer. The one who refused to join a union because it was unbecoming a nurse.

Purchase promotional items for National Nurses Week (i.e., RN Pins, key rings, t-shirts, mugs, buttons, etc.). Now that will really go a long way in improving working conditions. And guess who’s selling these cute little “promotional” items? Just more junk that will end up in landfill.

Ask every nurse in America to wear an “RN Pin” and/or nurse’s uniform during National Nurses Week. The official “RN Pin” is available by calling 1-800-445-0445 (credit card orders only). No comment. I mean, what can you really say?

Organize a free cholesterol and/or blood pressure screening in your local community and promote via radio announcements, flyers, posters, etc. Very nice, but how is that doing anything for nursing? It just shows (and I’m not being mean) that nurses are little angels who do these things for free, and never think about money or survival. But this is supposed to be nurses week, not Heart Health week.

The rest of the suggestions are just as silly. Is this the best they can do? I suppose, because it would be blasphemy to suggest that nurses actually do something constructive this week to help their profession and initiate change.

A smack across the butt for me (sounds kinky doesn’t it?) for actually forgetting that this week is National Nurses week. This has always been such an important holiday for me, it is amazing how I could forget such a thing. Now the eyes start rolling….

Nurses Week was an invention designed to make nurses think that they are appreciated. The American Nurses Association has announced the theme for Nurses Week 2007. “Nursing: a Profession and a Passion.” Wow, sounds cool. And how does this theme play into real life?

How many nurses will get a raise this week? How many nurses will get hired at a job and told that they do not have to do mandatory overtime? How many hospitals will “celebrate” nurses this week by not cancelling any of their shifts due to low census? How many hospitals will refrain this week from forcing nurses to float to units where they are unqualified or just don’t want to be? How many hospitals will celebrate nurses week by hiring additional ancilliary staff such as housekeeping, clerks, orderlies and aides, so that their nurses don’t have to be a jack of all trades and master of none? How many hospitals will celebrate nurses week by deciding to keep the cafeteria open past 7pm, or opening it up at 5am–you know, to accomodate those sacred nurses who keep their patients alive during off-shifts?

I could go on, but you get the point. I would love to hear of a hospital, nursing home, clinic, or anyone doing something constructive to celebrate Nurses week, other than giving out disgusting cupcakes with artificially flavored frosting on top, or cutesy little keychains that say “I love Nurses” with a big red heart.

And how will the ANA celebrate “Nursing: a Profession and a Passion?” Will the talking heads just get up and give some canned rah rah rah speeches, and then disappear into the woodwork? Or will it be a call to action, real action? Like hey nurses, get off your ass and demand a differential for being charge. Otherwise, refuse to do it. Get off your butts and refuse to work mandatory overtime. Tell the managers to come in, and to leave their own kids home alone.

Is the ANA going to tell them to get “passionate” about standing up for themselves and demanding changes in the workplace?

I kind of doubt it. Most nurses, I suppose, are waiting for their Prince Charming to come and rescue them—and by that I mean the always elusive outside force who’s going to step in and make sweeping changes. They don’t realize that if they don’t act, no one is going to save them.

Happy Nurses Week. Give my regards to Flo. Her birthday is May 12.

…you get bored one night while at work. I mean, everyone on nightshift spends the time either screwing in the oncall room or sleeping. Right?

Well, in case you’re looking for a little more exciting medically related entertainment, check out medicaltoys.com. You’ll never see Dr. Kildare the same way again.

And if you’re coworkers are as hot as you are, maybe you can make this a unit thing. One of you be the nurse, one the patient, one the physician, one the person in need of medical bondage and braces…and don’t forge the devices for penis pumping. Best to wear black PVC gloves for that.

For a project I’m working on, I happened to come across a study that was done in 2004, designed to evaluate the amount of abuse experienced by nursing students in Turkey. Now, Turkey is considered to be a model Islamic state (whatever that means) and is desperado city to get into the EU. I personally don’t think Turkey has any business being part of the EU; aside from the vast difference in culture, religion, history, and current economic status, and to say nothing of their human rights violations (think Kurds, honor killings of women), Turkey is geographically not in Europe. Isn’t that the point of the EU, to be a European country? Turkey is in the Middle East, like or not guys.

Anyway, I used to think being a nursing student in the US was bad, but now I realize it is heaven on earth compared to the fate that awaits you in Turkey.

Because abuse negatively affects victims’ physiological, psychological, and social health, the main purpose of this study was to identify the abuse experiences of nursing students in Turkey. This descriptive study used a questionnaire, administered to 225 students. Participants stated they were abused verbally (100%), academically (83.1%), sexually (53.3%), and physically (5.7%). Classmates, faculty, nurses, physicians, patients, and patients’ family members were identified as sources of the abuse.

Half of all students abused sexually? Now that is scary. And they think that they are ready to join the EU?

I have never watched the television program ER, and don’t intend to. I don’t watch television, and I’ve put in enough time in a hospital to know that I never want to be inside of one again. And that goes for spending my spare time staring at a screen and watching people getting paid to pretend that they are in a hospital.

That said, I found an article from the BMJ written in 2003, discussing how some of the nursing police think that ER is contributing to the nursing shortage. I agree that in many medical TV shows, and movies for that matter, nurses are depicted as morons. So are physicians for that matter. And patients. And anyone else who works in a hospital. The shows are often extremely inaccurate in their portrayal of procedures and treatments–like doing CPR without giving oxygen, or calling a neonatologist a “neonatalist.” Nearly every patient who codes recovers, and instantaneously as well. Hospitals are full of serial killers, hot romances, CEOS who come down from VIP land in the clouds to sit and talk with patients, and all nurses are sexy and below the age of 25.

But what can I say? It’s fantasy, fiction, Disneyland. People have to realize that they are watching brain mush and not a documentary.

From the BMJ:

The top rated television show ER, now in its tenth season, is the target of a letter writing campaign by nurses who say that the show’s depiction of them is demeaning. Such a negative portrayal, they say, is contributing to the critical shortage of nurses in the United States.

The show is wildly popular with audiences around the world. Twenty million US viewers alone tune in every week to watch, for example, patients with gunshot wounds or terminal cancer, or wealthy hypochondriacs pouring in through the doors of a level one trauma hospital in Chicago. The care of patients in ER always triggers ethical conundrums. Tempers flare. Doctors clash. In the end, the right thing is not always done.

The issues that the show tackles have long made it a target of advocacy groups. Anti-vaccination campaigners and advocates for blind people have protested about segments of ER. Now nurses are the ones who are angry, saying that they are being depicted as “handmaidens” to doctors. This, they claim, is contributing to the critical shortage of nurses in the United States.

At the risk of being so politically incorrect, I will say the exact opposite. I think these silly shows encourage people to be nurses. Yes, encourages them. Not because the depiction is demeaning and far from reality but because all of these programs–every last one of them–glamorizes health care. They make it seem exciting, full of high drama, full of attractive people, and every problem has a satisfactory solution. People on television tend to have patients vomit on them, or slip in a puddle of diarrhea, or worry about the inadequacy of their paycheck or benefits. Television healthcare is full of handsome men and beautiful women with bouncy breasts, and everyone is game for a tussle in the on-call room.

And when eager students enter the hallowed halls of nursing school, expecting to be caught up in the high drama that they see on television, and to have their heartstrings tugged by the exceptional patient—the shock of the real hospital can be lethal.

Sorry girls, but you can’t blame the nursing shortage on television. I’ve recently read through some documents written in the late 1970s and the late 1980s, which were two periods of dire nursing shortages. They could have been written today. Same problems, same issues, same reasons. Strange how no one has moved to solve them.

Or maybe if we just took ER off the air, that would save the world.

Just an update to my posting about poor Tobias, who used an escort service only to have “gals come up to my condo to give me a massage.” And who preached the Bush rhetoric of abstinence until marriage (and thereafter unless you wanted to have kids, as birth control also seems to be a no-no), when he headed up the AIDS program.

The story was sent to the Daily Show, and Jon Stewart is having a field day with it. If you want a good laugh, go to the Daily Show website and watch the two videos, “Prostitution Gate” and “Beltway UnBuckled”…..

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml

My nursing school was at a Catholic University, and some of my classmates were green little girls who’d never ventured far from home or the Catholic church. They had spent grades K-12 under the watchful eyes of nuns, and had been thoroughly indoctrinated into Catholic thought and ideas.

There is nothing wrong with being a practicing Catholic, if that is what you choose to believe. But strict church views do not belong in the healthcare profession, unless you plan on working in an extremely restricted environment. For instance, one of my classmates–a sweet girl named Florence (I kid you not) said that she would never take care of an abortion patient. Ok, so you don’t go and work in an abortion clinic, and you don’t work on the OB floor of a hospital that performs them. But I recall putting the following questions to little Flo:

What if you were working in med/surg, and you happened to have a patient with complications from an abortion. Are you going to refuse to take the assignment?

What if you’re working in the ER, and a woman comes in bleeding/infected from an abortion. Are you going to refuse the patient? What if you’re the only available nurse? What are you going to tell her, go bleed to death you sinful bitch?

Florence got rattled over these questions, because she had never considered any of these situations. You know, like moving past the comfort zone. She assumed that she’d never have to touch a gay patient, never have to deal with abortion, never have to deal with STDs…

The reason I bring this up is because yet another Bush devotee has fallen from grace. A man who has been leading the devastating US policy on AIDS seems to have a taste for prostitutes. Imagine that, preaching abstinence yet being unable to keep your own zipper up. And paying for it no less. Then again, who would want to screw the jerk for free? This is a delightful press release from the Center for Health and Gender Equity:

Tobias Latest Evidence of Bush Hypocrisy

by Jodi Jacobson

In the final moments of the Washington work day last Friday evening, emails began shooting across my screen announcing the immediate resignation of Randall Tobias as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The official press release cited “personal reasons,” and this was clearly important news, so I passed it on to colleagues right away. One immediately wrote back asking for the “back story,” on suspicion that a late-Friday release always means something fishy. I offered that Mr. Tobias might have a family emergency, and while I’ve long been a critic of the policies over which he has presided both as Global AIDS Coordinator and in his current capacity, I nonetheless felt compassion for him in what appeared to be a serious personal matter.

Boy was I wrong. Little did I realize that this was in fact a “back” story . . . Tobias’s had been inviting some “gals” over to his condo for personal massages. Problem is those “gals” were employed by Pamela Martin and Associates, described in court papers by owner Deborah Palfrey as a “high-end adult fantasy firm offering legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior.” Palfrey, now dubbed the DC Madam, is under investigation for running a “prostitution ring,” a no-no last time I understood Administration policy. Tobias’s personal cell phone number was found among thousands of other customers, many of them reportedly high-level Washington officials, on a list kept by Palfrey now being used in her defense.

Tobias, of course, claims he “did not have sex with those women” (let’s call them “les gals”), and just invited them over for a bunch of friendly massages. Let’s put aside whether Tobias simply lusted in his heart while receiving massages from women employed by a firm offering “legal sexual and erotic services,” and ask: If tight muscles were the only problem, why didn’t he open the yellow pages and hire a certified massage therapist? Is the concierge at his condo on vacation? And does the fact that some of the women were from Central America—immigration status unknown—hint at a new kind of guest worker program supported by the Administration?

Let me be clear: I personally do not care about, nor is it my business to know about, the sexual habits, practices or relationships of consenting adults, and in any case sex between mature, consenting individuals is normal and healthy. But religious fundamentalist self-righteousness and hypocrisy both send me up the wall. And as you may know, Bush and his supporters are really big on abstinence. From sex. Always. In the far-right’s anti-science, always-fiction world, you should never have sex, unless you are a married heterosexual willing to do so only at risk of getting pregnant. Others—sexually active unmarrieds, gay, lesbian and transgender persons, and anyone else outside the “norm”—are subject to reprogramming. So since the Bush Administration wants a video cam in every bedroom and uterus (and I have no idea whether Tobias was taping his masseuses but that is another story), it is fair to ask if these guys are practicing what they preach. Apparently not.

This might in fact just have been one more “thank-god-its-Friday” “what next?” Washington story if it weren’t for the irony of Tobias’ recent career path, in which he was previously the Global AIDS Coordinator, responsible for overseeing the $15 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and now, as Director of all U.S. Foreign Assistance, ultimately responsible for all foreign assistance including HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and family planning and other areas having to do with sex, reproduction, and women’s rights.

Abstinence is big in U.S. global AIDS policy, which one colleague dubbed the “Americans for Stopping Sex in Africa League.” Billions of dollars have been spent in a fruitless effort at home and abroad to spread a hyper-moralistic and ideological message to everyone and sundry. Programs teaching people sexual negotiation and safer sex methods have become as scarce as rubbers in Uganda. Even sex workers in Asia and Africa are being told to abstain. (Don’t ask me . . . it’s in the program guides.)

Never mind that unprotected sex is the single greatest factor in the spread of HIV infection worldwide in a global epidemic of unprecedented proportions, and never mind that, as a long list of cell phone numbers from Washington officials indicates, others share my contention that sex is a fundamental part of human life and everyone is trying to get some somewhere.

So enter Tobias who, in both his past and current position, has been and is the ultimate defender and enforcer of some of the most highly controversial policies, including the so-called “ABC” (abstain, be faithful, use-condoms-if-you-are-a-sex-worker-or can’t-control yourself) approach to HIV prevention, the prostitution pledge, and the anti-trafficking policies of the Bush Administration. He has repeatedly testified before Congress supporting these policies, regularly using faulty data to support his claims.

Under the “ABC” policy as developed under Tobias’ watch, some 11 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have been subject to abstinence-only-until marriage programs, receiving no information, training, or methods to practice safer sex, despite the fact that unprotected sex is responsible for 80 percent of new infections in that region. Condoms have been re-stigmatized and in some programs paid for by your tax dollars, teens actually are told they will go to hell for having sex.

Another 30 million have received “abstinence and be faithful messages”—whatever that means. And whatever it means, either it doesn’t work in high-literacy settings in Washington or Tobias, a married man, has not been reading his own literature. I mean, even if no “actual sexual activity” was involved (and in some abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula in the United States even touching constitutes an unforgivable act, so unless Les Gals were using retractable devices for those massages, I am suspicious) do you qualify as “being faithful” when you have private exotic dancers prancing through your apartment? Rick Warren please advise.

But the irony does not stop there. Under the “prostitution pledge,” U.S. policy forbids organizations from receiving U.S. global AIDS funding if they refuse to sign a pledge stating that they will not in any way promote or support prostitution. Violating this pledge means loss of funding. This policy, vaguely written and defined as is the pattern of the far right, has led to the closure of drop-in centers, classes, and health clinics serving the needs of sex workers in several countries in Asia, and has turned health professionals into snitches for the Administration. As a result, the trust built up over many years between the public health community and disadvantaged and marginalized groups like sex workers has been demolished, the basic human rights of sex workers abrogated, and efforts to stem the spread of HIV infection grossly undermined.

I may be missing something, but does hiring gals from an organization that promotes itself as selling sexual services contradict this policy? Does the fact that this involved women from another country, thereby possibly violating the anti-trafficking policies of the Bush Administration mean that the USAID uber-Administrator himself is in violation of the laws he is supposed to be upholding, however deeply misguided these are? Does this mean that USAID should de-fund the Administrator’s office and do we need a State Department Trafficking in Persons report on the activities of individuals within the Administration? And what about the “end-demand” policies of the Administration that wants to put all “johns” in jail? Does Tobias serve time for his gal-pal flings?

In a saner world, U.S. global AIDS policies (and all those having to do with reproductive and sexual health) would be based on the promotion of individual rights, public health, and collective responsibility. In a saner world, the U.S. government would not be known for its fundamentalist “tighty-whities-in-a-twist” approach to sex.

But we don’t live in that world. In our world, people with wealth, money, and power get away with “special massages,” they make unrealistic rules for other people and set their own for themselves. And those at greatest risk of life-threatening infections and engaged in a fundamental daily life struggle to survive are punished in the interest of moralism. Give me some real science fiction any day.

PEPFAR WATCH is a project of the Center for Health and Gender Equity intended to inform and spur action on U.S. global HIV/AIDS policies and related issues in which U.S. policy and funding is of concern.

If you’re concerned about tainted pet food, the American Veterinary Medical Association has a comprehensive listing of all pet foods that have been recalled, plus ones that are now considered safe. If you click on the products listed, they give you a complete history of the recall, and why the product’s safety is questioned.

And of course, I can’t post anything about tainted pet food without once again mentioning how the FDA dragged its ass on this, how they waited weeks to act, and how they don’t seem to be doing anything to “regulate” the pet food manufacturers. I mean, that’s their job, isn’t it. Ooops, sorry, I forget. The FDA is supposed to be regulating the financial health of the industry.

Well now here is one of the all time dorkiest comments from the FDA, if such a thing is possible. This is from an article that appeared in the Indystar.com, about pet owners moving to making homemade food for their pets.

The FDA and the American Veterinary Medical Association are urging pet owners to switch brands if they are worried. The veterinarian group also warned that many common foods are not safe for pets, including salt, garlic, onions, grapes and chocolate.

Making pet food at home is “kind of like canning: You have to think about bacterial contamination. And how do you make sure it’s nutritionally appropriate and balanced for the animal?” said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza.

Apparently Ms. Zawisza has never read a pet food label, because if she did, it would be impossible to make such an idiotic comment publically. Then again, the FDA makes many idiotic comments publically, and make fools and jackassess of themselves on a daily basis, and endanger the health and well being of the entire nation, so I guess that comment is in keeping with their policy.

What kind of bacterial contamination are we going to get in home cooked pet foods? That’s like saying we would all be better off eating food out of cans, rather than making fresh meals from scratch for ourselves and families. And as I said, it is frightening what the FDA “approves” as safe and nutritious for both humans and pets. Reading the labels on pet foods, even some of the fancy brands, is enough to make you ill. This whole pet food scandal has to do with wheat gluten, and pray tell, what is wheat gluten doing in pet food? It is there just as filler, so companies can save money by cutting back on meat and vegetables. That’s right, filler.

How do animals in the wild make sure that their meals are nutritionally balanced? I guess they confer with the FDA before eating. It is interesting to note, that the only animals that seem to develop “human diseases” like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, kidney failure, etc, are the ones in captivity and the ones being fed commercial food. Mammals are made to eat raw food. I do feed my cats raw meat (organic from Whole Foods), vegetables and vitamin supplements. I think that their diet is a lot healthier than the chemical stew of low grade and highly processed products that are contained in most commercial pet foods.

If you are going to use commerical pet food, only buy foods that are human grade, which means that they are fit for human consumption. And add fresh foods to the diet, if you are feeding them mostly dry kibble. I mean, how healthy do you think you would be if the only thing you ate was some processed dry crunchy stuff?

And maybe FDA maven Julie Zawisza, would like to be treated to a bowl of Meow Mix and milk. Why not? She thinks its so healthy.

Oh, that is like so un-PC to use the word fat. Well, I like being un-PC. And this article from the Seattle Times flies in the face of all the supposed health accolades that Seattle gets. Some magazine, I think Men’s Health, voted Seattle the healthiest city in 2006. Their measure of health was a little skewed (like the number of health clubs in the city as opposed to the number of people who are actually members and actually work-out), and ignored the number of fat people walking the streets.

Yes, fat. Okay, I will be more polite. Obese, overweight, but it all means the same thing. Weight is a major issue here, and one of the major pre-disposing factors of type 2 diabetes.

From the Seattle Times:

Diabetes prevalence has more than doubled among King County residents during the past decade, with nearly 6 percent of the population now suffering from the disease.

About 84,000 people in King County have been diagnosed with the often-debilitating illness, 13,400 others are on the borderline, and many more don’t know they have it, according to a report released Monday by Public Health — Seattle & King County.

As in the rest of the nation, the increase is blamed on obesity and a lack of physical exercise. Nearly a fifth of King County residents are considered obese.

It’s not a big surprise, and I’m surprised that the number isn’t even higher. I remember the job I had when I first moved here, in a call center. Now I know that being a nurse has nothing to do with health–many of the nurses that I have known and worked with over the years were about the unhealthiest people you could meet. Horrendous diet, smokers, drinkers, cocaine users, no exercise, stressed-out, etc. At this call center, which was more low key (in some ways) than a hospital, had an incredibly high number of overweight nurses. I would guess that at least two thirds were overweight, and about one-third obese. There were about three or four nurses who were so fat that they could barely move, and one of them became breathless after talking for a while.

I was amazed at the level of fat in this place. Here were nurses giving health advice to people on the other end of the phone, when they were in dire need of some advice themselves.

Anyway, come to Seattle if you’d like to increase your chances of becoming diabetic.