Could you follow the advice you give your patients?

Second year medical students at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine got an interesting assignment: For five days eat a healthy diet spending only as much as a food stamp recipient would get, about $16.97. Yes, $16.97 for five days. About $1 per meal.

If you were in this position, what would you buy? How would you prepare it? How many fruits and vegetables would it include? Would you choose to eat enough quantity so you don’t feel hungry, or eat nutritious foods that optimize health?

What if you had high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, or diabetes? How would you feel if your health care provider told you to improve your diet? How would you respond?

Evidence shows the most effective patient education involves the learner, and individualizes teaching to the needs of the learner. Imagine how the teaching would change if the health care provider first asked, “Do you ever worry whether your food would run out before you got money to buy more?”

How often do we assess our learners to know how to individualize teaching? How often to we label someone as noncompliant, when they simply did not have the resources to follow our standardized directions?

Sources:

VU medical students slash food budgets for week, By Jennifer Brooks, The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100113/NEWS04/1130361/VU-medical-students-slash-food-budgets-for-week

Nord, M., M. Andrews, and S. Carlson (2004). Household Food Security in the United States,

Panel to Review U.S Department of Agriculture’s Measurement of Food Insecurity and Hunger, N., & Council., R. (2005). Measuring Food Insecurity and Hunger: Phase 1 Report Available from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11227

One Response to “Could you follow the advice you give your patients?”

1. Amy says:

   February 16, 2010 at 1:38 pm

   Interesting blog post, Fran.

   I’m curious to know what your thoughts are on insurance companies getting more involved in patient ed?

   I got a letter in the mail from my insurance company last year letting me know that the co-pays on one of my drugs was going to go up significantly. They sent me a list of generics that I could get for the same co-pay I had been paying for the name-brand drug, and explained that I should call my doctor to request that the prescription be changed. I really appreciated that! No one from my doctor’s office gave me that heads up and if I had waited to go pick up my meds from the pharmacy without getting the prescription changed to a generic, I’m not sure that I would have been able to afford getting my meds. Which could have meant me going non-compliant. Which could have been very bad for my health.

   It seems that I’m getting more and more in the mail from my insurance company about some of my disease/conditions. They’re sending me patient education info and resources, coupons for stuff that I need to buy to stay healthy, etc. They want to keep me well because it costs them less to do so.

   How do you feel about insurance companies taking on a great role as patient educator and patient advocate?