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Making sense of 36% Blue Cross premium increase – Commercial Appeal
This week, when I read the headlines “Blue Cross proposes premium increases,” I cringed. Health care premiums are a significant burden on many American families, averaging about $1,000 a month, not counting thousands of dollars people pay in deductibles, copayments,…
A Doctor’s Experience in the Nepal Earthquake – Huffington Post
The morning after his brother’s bachelor party, standing on the fourth floor of his family home, Dr. Arvind Goel, felt the ground move under his feet. “First it was minor vibrations and then it built up in a crescendo and then the couch where my four month…
National Nurses Week honors essential partners in patient care – Commercial Appeal
Some years ago, when my father underwent bypass surgery, he was anxious, depressed and in pain as he lay in the hospital bed tied to IV catheters and tubes. Each day, his surgeon, his hospitalist, and other consultant doctors whisked in and out, asking how he was…
Gender pay gap persists especially in health care professions – Commercial Appeal
Last Tuesday evening after dinner, with a cup of tea in hand, I read a newspaper column titled, “Women still earn a lot less than men.” This prompted me to ask my wife, “Do you think this is really true?” Then, I editorialized, “But it can’t be true in health care.”…
2015 Gandhi-King Conference to explore stubborn racial disparities – Commercial Appeal
When I walk into an exam room and my patient is black, do I treat him differently than if he were white? I may say “no”, but the data say “yes.” When I walk into an exam room and I see a patient who has no health insurance, do I treat her differently from a patient…
Meditation a useful technique for achieving mindfulness – Commercial Appeal
We sit in a conference room on red swivel chairs, quiet, motionless, eyes closed. We turn off our senses just like we turn down the house lights, switch off the television, and close the garage door at the end of the day. We become numb and detached from our bodies….
What’s in an itch? – Commercial Appeal
What’s in an itch? Walking out of a patient’s room, I develop an itch. An itch around my neck, on my forehead, and in the middle of my back. I cannot help but scratch and feel some relief. My patient, a thin woman in her 50s, who works in a day care center, has a…
A Snow Day Reflection – Huffington Post
This week, I was going to write my usual health column, but then I decided to take a “snow day.” Yet, soon, I realized that the snow and ice we have experienced was not hindering the path from my bedroom to the computer room, nor was the snow preventing…
Sometimes deep-seated beliefs impervious to contrary evidence – Commercial Appeal
Last week, when my beloved New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, barely any friends shared my joy. Even my wife, a New York Giants fan, retorted with “The Patriots are a bunch of cheaters,” referring not so subtly to the deflated football scandal. “They scored 45…
Healthy Memphis: Huddle isn’t just for football – Commercial Appeal
Last week, we were awestruck watching the last three minutes of the NFL’s National Football Conference championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers. My 15-year-old son and I watched Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson score a touchdown and…
New England Patriots Had a Safer Option in the Last Seconds of Playoff Game – Huffington Post
Co-authored by Rishab Jain As lifelong New England Patriots fans, we stood with bated breath in the last four seconds of this past Saturday’s AFC Divisional Round playoff game against the Ravens, as Joe Flacco heaved up a Hail Mary that was, thankfully, batted…
Healthy Memphis: Taking stairs means giant step toward better living – Commercial Appeal
On the first of the year, while making my rounds at the hospital, I did something I hope to continue: I took the stairs. My action was prompted by something that had happened a few days earlier. I had “sticker shock” when I stepped on my bathroom scale and saw that I…
Healthy Memphis: Finding hope and happiness this holiday season – Commercial Appeal
My wife loves to watch holiday movies. Each Christmas season she watches James Stewart’s 1946 movie “It’s A Wonderful Life.” “Every year, everyone should watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’” she insists. She watches them because they have…
A kiss is not just a kiss: biology vs. psychology – The Tennessean
This year, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. So, last week, one evening, I told my wife about a news story I heard on National Public Radio (NPR) about the microbiology of a kiss. My wife smiled. A group of researchers, I said, looked at the oral bacterial…
Healthy Memphis: The scientifically sound benefits of kissing – Commercial Appeal
This year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. So one evening last week I told my wife about a news story I’d heard on National Public Radio (NPR) about the microbiology of a kiss. My wife smiled. A group of researchers, I said, looked at the oral…
Healthy Memphis: Local Rotary contributes to global TB battle – Commercial Appeal
As I write this, I am on a flight back from India after a weeklong medical mission trip for a Rotary Club Global Grant on the elimination of tuberculosis (TB). In America, we don’t worry about TB because it is one of our many medical success stories, along with…
Rethinking the 21-Day Quarantine for Ebola Contacts – Huffington Post
Contact Dr. Manoj Jain (mkjain@aol.com / 901-681-0778) A few weeks ago an emergency room doctor called our infectious disease physician group concerning a patient who had returned from Liberia and was having nausea and vomiting. Several of the patient’s family…
Are Local Hospitals Prepared for Ebola? – Huffington Post
Contact Dr. Manoj Jain (mkjain@aol.com / 901-681-0778) Two weeks ago at our community hospital, after we concluded a nearly two-hour standing room only Ebola preparedness meeting, I practiced donning and doffing the personal protective equipment (PPE) for Ebola cases….
Healthy Memphis: Donate to combat Ebola – Commercial Appeal
Last week, I casually mentioned to my wife, “I spoke with volunteers at Doctors Without Borders today, and they need help.” This was before the first case of Ebola was diagnosed on U.S. soil. Doctors Without Borders is a nonprofit organization delivering emergency…
To Stop Ebola Here, We Must Stop It There – Huffington Post
Last week, after dinner, as I was rinsing the dishes, I casually mentioned to my wife, “I spoke with the volunteers at Doctors Without Borders today, and they need help.” This was before the first case of Ebola was diagnosed on U.S. soil. A pregnant…
Panhandlers shouldn’t exploit illnesses – Commercial Appeal
t’s nearly 100 degrees in the mid-August Memphis sun. At the side of the exit ramp to Winchester Road from Bill Morris Parkway East, a middle-aged man sits on a bucket. He is wearing a clean white T-shirt, gray shorts and a faded orange cap partially covering his…
Unpleasant, but necessary, 50th birthday present – Commercial Appeal
For my 50th birthday my doctors give me a present: a colonoscopy. The prep instructions are daunting. “In a large pitcher pour two 32 oz. bottles of Gatorade and 8.3 oz. bottle of MiraLAX. Begin drinking every 15 min. until completed.” I start this at 4 p.m. the day…
Pay for performance right direction for heath care – Commercial Appeal
It’s another busy day at the hospital and as I dictate yet another consult note, I find I am repeating myself: “Patient has a history of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease …,” and then on the next patient, “heart disease, breast cancer and…
Education can Empower in Fighting Ebola – Commercial Appeal
If an ill patient, who unexpectedly has Ebola, landed in Memphis, it is likely that my partner or I would see him. We work as infectious disease doctors at the hospital closest to the airport. The Ebola patient would present with fever, nausea and…
DR. JAIN FOR SHELBY COUNTY COMMISSION
I am Dr. Manoj Jain, and I am running for Shelby County Commissioner for District 13, which includes portions of Midtown and East Memphis stretching to Germantown. I am a medical doctor and live with my family in East Memphis. My parents immigrated to the United…
Doctors struggling over role in treating childhood obesity – Commercial Appeal
Lying in a hospital bed, my seriously obese patient can barely see her swollen and odorous right foot over her abdominal fat. The foot is soon to be amputated, the result of an untreatable infection exacerbated by diabetes and kidney failure, which developed in part…
Sinusitis among most mistreated illnesses – Commercial Appeal
Over the past month my daughter, my aunt, my father-in-law and sister-in-law all have been taking antibiotics for a sinus or an upper respiratory infection. As the infectious disease doctor in the family, I feel partly responsible for all this. For my teenage daughter…
Flu complications come on fast – Vaccine can save time, money, lives – Tennessean
The night before I was leaving for a three-week medical mission trip, I was called urgently to the ICU to see a patient I’ll call Rachel, a previously healthy woman in her late 40s, slightly overweight. She had started a new job as a customer service agent. Rachel was…
Vaccine can prevent deadly flu complications – Commercial Appeal
The night before I was leaving for a three-week medical mission trip, I was called urgently to the ICU to see Rachel (name altered), a previously healthy woman in her late 40s. She had started a new job as a customer service agent. Rachel was the sickest patient I had…
Obamacare’s Upheaval of the Insurance Market – Huffington Post
Some years ago, driving through an end of town where pawn shops and boarded up homes are common, I saw a small placard sign nailed on a telephone pole. “Buy Health Insurance,” it touted with premiums as low as $25 a month. I was tempted….
Quality Improvement Projects in India
Books
Mindfulness
The Mindfulness Model
Management of Infectious Diseases
Roadmap for Quality Improvement
Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle Rejuvenates a Marriage
MAHAVIRA – The Hero of Nonviolence
Cook Books