Top Stories:
For Artist Inspired By Illness, ‘Gratitude Outweighs Pain’
People often ask Dylan Mortimer how it feels to breathe through transplanted lungs. He gets that a lot because while most people go through life with one pair of lungs, Mortimer is on his third. The 40-year-old artist has endured two double lung transplants in the past two years. He often shares his journey onstage as a speaker. But when the curtain closes, he leaves the rest of the storytelling to art….
Why Food Could Be the Best Medicine of All
When Tom Shicowich’s toe started feeling numb in 2010, he brushed it off as a temporary ache. At the time, he didn’t have health insurance, so he put off going to the doctor. The toe became infected, and he got so sick that he stayed in bed for two days with what he assumed was the flu. When he finally saw a doctor, the physician immediately sent Shicowich to the emergency room. Several days later, surgeons amputated his toe… Read at Time
Workism Is Making Americans Miserable
For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising transcendence and community, but failing to deliver.
In his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour workweek in the 21st century…
Read at The Atlantic
A Midwife in the North Country
The sun was still rising on a brisk Monday morning in October last year when Sunday Smith, a midwife in New York’s North Country, pulled into the gravel driveway of a small dairy farm, scattering some chickens. She had driven for about ninety minutes, along dark country roads, for a prenatal appointment with Jennifer, who was twenty-nine weeks pregnant with her fourth child. At the front door, an Australian cattle dog named Tickle … Read at The New Yorker
In Appalachia, Crafting a Road to Recovery With Dulcimer Strings
In Kentucky, where music is the lifeblood, an apprentice program run by luthiers provides meaningful jobs and helps remove the stigma of opioid addiction. The heritage of handcrafted stringed instruments runs deep in this tiny Appalachian village (pop. 770) stretched along the banks of Troublesome Creek… Read at NYTimes
How ancient remedies are changing modern medicine
Long overlooked by Western science, traditional Chinese treatments are yielding cutting-edge cures.
In my hand I’m holding a warm, beating heart. About the size of a softball, it’s a luminous globe of scarlet, pink, and white tissue. I can feel its chambers contracting and hear the whoosh… Read at NG
For Artist Inspired By Illness, ‘Gratitude Outweighs Pain’
People often ask Dylan Mortimer how it feels to breathe through transplanted lungs. He gets that a lot because while most people go through life with one pair of lungs, Mortimer is on his third.
SPECIAL REPORTS
An Arm and a Leg
Health care — and how much it costs — is scary. But you’re not alone with this stuff, and knowledge is power. “An Arm and a Leg” is a podcast about these issues, and its second season is co-produced by KHN. The 40-year-old artist has endured two double lung transplants in the past two years. He often shares his journey onstage as a speaker. But when the curtain closes, he leaves the rest of the storytelling to art“I’m alive because of what someone else did,”…
Read at KHN
A Midwife in the North Country
The sun was still rising on a brisk Monday morning in October last year when Sunday Smith, a midwife in New York’s North Country, pulled into the gravel driveway of a small dairy farm, scattering some chickens. She had driven for about ninety minutes, along dark country roads, for a prenatal appointment with Jennifer, who was twenty-nine weeks pregnant with her fourth child. At the front door, an Australian cattle dog named Tickle … Read at The New Yorker
PerspectivesPractitioners Speak
Moral Injury From a Primary Care Perspective
In the past 15 years, I have seen the corporatization of health care and a war on physician autonomy in general and primary care in particular.
Primary care physicians have been relegated to triage workers for big health systems and insurance companies. The devaluation is so extreme that in many areas of the country, they are losing out on competitive jobs to physician assistants and nurse practitioners. These physician extenders are valuable assets to the health care system but also more likely to sing the tune of the administrators and regulatory bodies…
Book + Product Reviews
“Revolution of the Soul” by Seane Corn
Revolution of the Soul is the debut book by yoga instructor Seane Corn. It is an autobiography recounting her transformative journey of healing trauma and answering the call to remedy social injustice through her non-profit Off the Mat Into the World. Corn’s naked writing style coupled with her coming of age story is a captivating read. Her life is filled with contrasts reflecting the challenges we all face but struggle to overcome. The backdrop is Manhattan’s pre-gentrified lower east side in the 80’s with its socially marginalized outcasts of drug addicts, punks, underground LGBTQ scene and AIDS crises. There are colorful and thought-provoking friends compelling her to look inward and be curious about life’s bigger questions.
Ricky’s Riffs: A blog about health and healing and a world that needs care.
Cannabis: Medicine of the Future?
The cultivation of cannabis is a science and an art. As medicine, it can be used for relief of pain and the enhancing of pleasure; to relax and to sleep. It can stimulate the creative mind, and the spiritual one as well. The Emerald Cup, an annual event held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, is the “Academy Awards” of cannabis. Named for Northern California’s “Emerald Triangle”–the center of the state’s cannabis cultivation industry—it is now in its sixteenth year. Awards are given…
Health GroovesA Podcast
On Mindfulness with Rik Center, Author and Mindful-Somatic Counselor (E24)
Rik Center is the author of the new book, “If You Can’t Change Your Mood, Change Your Mind ~ mindful reflections toward self-discovery.” Rik is co-founder of the Mindfulness Care Center, through which he teaches and develops a variety of mindful classes and how to work with unresolved traumatic anxiety. Rik is a Mindful-Somatic Counselor, Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, and has served as a Buddhist/Interfaith Chaplain at San Francisco General and CPMC Hospitals.
In this conversation we discuss Rik’s new book and the nature of mindfulness practice.
Events, Activities, Healing
The International Extremity Project
A non-profit medical mission, IEP travels to Vietnam and Namibia to perform surgical correction for severe lower-extremity deformities to the underserved.
Previously known as Mission Peace, the International Extremity Project grew out of a 1998 medical mission to Vietnam. Our hearts went out to the dedicated and unselfish efforts of those reaching out to help those in need.
IEP provides support for humanitarian projects and supplies medical assistance to the people of Vietnam through medical missions to Can Tho. Our medical missions correct physical lower-extremity deformities to give a new chance at life to many needy Vietnamese.
Events, Activities, Healing
The International Extremity Project
A non-profit medical mission, IEP travels to Vietnam and Namibia to perform surgical correction for severe lower-extremity deformities to the underserved.
Previously known as Mission Peace, the International Extremity Project grew out of a 1998 medical mission to Vietnam. Our hearts went out to the dedicated and unselfish efforts of those reaching out to help those in need.
IEP provides support for humanitarian projects and supplies medical assistance to the people of Vietnam through medical missions to Can Tho. Our medical missions correct physical lower-extremity deformities to give a new chance at life to many needy Vietnamese.
Ricky FishmanChiropractor, Advocate,Content Curator
Ricky Fishman has been a Doctor of Chiropractic since 1986. As a leader in the field of integral healing, he has brought together and assimilated the work of chiropractors, medical doctors, acupuncturists, nurse practitioners, psychologists, physical therapists and others. Complementing his clinical work, Ricky has taught both graduate and undergraduate coursework in the history and philosophy of science and medicine. In addition to the treatment of back pain and other musculoskeletal injuries, he works as a consultant in the field of health and wellness with companies dedicated to re-visioning health care for the 21st century. “Condition” is the culmination of his many years in health care; of practice, teaching and research. For more information about his work, visit www.rickyfishman.com
PerspectivesPractitioners Speak
Moral Injury From a Primary Care Perspective
In the past 15 years, I have seen the corporatization of health care and a war on physician autonomy in general and primary care in particular.
Primary care physicians have been relegated to triage workers for big health systems and insurance companies. The devaluation is so extreme that in many areas of the country, they are losing out on competitive jobs to physician assistants and nurse practitioners. These physician extenders are valuable assets to the health care system but also more likely to sing the tune of the administrators and regulatory bodies…
Ricky’s Riffs: A blog about health and healing and a world that needs care.
Cannabis: Medicine of the Future?
The cultivation of cannabis is a science and an art. As medicine, it can be used for relief of pain and the enhancing of pleasure; to relax and to sleep. It can stimulate the creative mind, and the spiritual one as well. The Emerald Cup, an annual event held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, is the “Academy Awards” of cannabis. Named for Northern California’s “Emerald Triangle”–the center of the state’s cannabis cultivation industry—it is now in its sixteenth year. Awards are given…
Book + Product Reviews
“Revolution of the Soul” by Seane Corn
Revolution of the Soul is the debut book by yoga instructor Seane Corn. It is an autobiography recounting her transformative journey of healing trauma and answering the call to remedy social injustice through her non-profit Off the Mat Into the World. Corn’s naked writing style coupled with her coming of age story is a captivating read. Her life is filled with contrasts reflecting the challenges we all face but struggle to overcome. The backdrop is Manhattan’s pre-gentrified lower east side in the 80’s with its socially marginalized outcasts of drug addicts, punks, underground LGBTQ scene and AIDS crises. There are colorful and thought-provoking friends compelling her to look inward and be curious about life’s bigger questions.
Ricky FishmanChiropractor, Advocate,Content Curator
Ricky Fishman has been a Doctor of Chiropractic since 1986. As a leader in the field of integral healing, he has brought together and assimilated the work of chiropractors, medical doctors, acupuncturists, nurse practitioners, psychologists, physical therapists and others. Complementing his clinical work, Ricky has taught both graduate and undergraduate coursework in the history and philosophy of science and medicine. In addition to the treatment of back pain and other musculoskeletal injuries, he works as a consultant in the field of health and wellness with companies dedicated to re-visioning health care for the 21st century. “Condition” is the culmination of his many years in health care; of practice, teaching and research. For more information about his work, visit www.rickyfishman.com
