If you could peak inside a large city hospital or inside of nursing homes or inside of rehabilitation and care centers , without the permission of any doctors, nurses or administrators, what would you see? What would your experience be like? Would you see a well-run building? Or would you see staff that look as if they are on vacation? What happens in the large city hospitals at night, on the, as they say, the graveyard shift?

YOU Have permission; Here Is How To Get It:

You can visit at the beginning of visiting hours---yes, right IN the visiting hours but at the very first hours, and at the last hours, and you will see more of what is really happening in there. WHen it is in mid-visit hours, by that time, they have cleaned most of it up. But in the early hours, they never expect anyone to visit at those hours, so they mess up sometimes, and slip up and forget to cover-up their negligence and their lack of care.

Peak here and do not tell anyone. You will see some workers who are exhausted because this is their second job, not their first job. You will see workers who are tired because there generally is not enough help and the night workers, even though it is slower at night, are more tired because they are not used to sleeping in the daytime and working at night.

Lack of Supervision:

You will see a lack of supervision, and lack of administrators because most of them are off-duty and the ones that are working have their hands full on these slow nights. You will probably see the hardest workers of all are the cleaning staff. No joke. The cleaning staff will be making everything sparkling so when the lawyers and investigators come around, they can and will report that the building was clean. You will see people standing around, hanging out . AND, yes, of course, you will find a few workers who actually know what they are doing and find others who are actually doing it.

Stinky Urine Smells, Old Stale Urine --Means dirty diapers Hours and Hours Old:

In the past, I have visited many teaching hospitals and or large city hospitals and a few more private hospitals on the weekends, off-hours and holidays--during visiting hourse. One of the worse experiences was when I went with a friend of mine to visit someone on the weekend at the New Vanderbilt Rehabilitation and care center. When we arrived there, we saw that the hallways actually smelled of urine when they did not smell of urine when the bulk of the visitors came to visit. Even though we were there during visiting hours, they were not expecting visitors so early on a weekend. So obviously they had not cleaned up this floor and it really stunk of urine, of , we guess , dirty diapers, and other non-pleasant scents. You could smell this right as you got off the elevator and the scent was stronger as you walked down the corridors. On a different occasion, same place, we saw one man with his pants soaked from urine. It seems that sometimes even though the places are understaffed, they appear to be more understaffed OR the staff is simply not supervised enough to be running properly BEFORE the bulk of visitors get there.

What is the worst that you have seen in rehab centers and nursing homes?

Check out these places on weekends but get up EARLY and arrive just as the visiting hours begin, and you will see what the place is like and what the places smell like BEFORE the visitors arrive. (Maybe if the staff is reading this , they might have the time to begin cleaning the place up). The urine smell was the very least of their very serious other problems. No one knows how the place stays open, but I am guessing that someone is hiding something, wouldn't you agree?

So what is that exactly? Sometimes you come to these articles and you feel like you are watching a perfume commercial. You just have no clue what it is about. Have you ever seen those mod commercials that are enticing, interesting, wild and fun, but by the time you get to the end of the commercial you have no clue what kind of product they are trying to sell? Well, did you wonder what this article is about also? I am writing about truth, truth in life, truth in general and truth, especially, in nursing homes. I am writing about truth, trusting doctors and other authorities and how our blind trust in them harms us and other customers, patients or residents.

How can the truth harm? Simple! The truth harms when professionals, doctors, and nurses do not tell the truth. What happens when social workers do not tell the truth? And how do they get away wtih this anyway? How does a professional get away with telling fibs that harm a patient's life?

Well, for the most part, when professionals fib, and hide the truth from patients and families they do that because they are trying to cover something up. The doctors, nurses and social workers, perhaps felt they did something wrong, something incorrect or perhaps they did something that might be considered malpractice or even gross negligence. Think about it? What doctor and nurse and social worker will willingly come forward and say that they made a mistake? Have you ever seen any news reports of any professionals admitting that they were at fault? I have not seen any and I am willing to say that you probably have not seen any either.

But I have overheard professionals talking about their mistakes and also talking about how they can cover them up. What have you heard? While I was at Woodhull hospital one day, I overheard --just by walking through the hallway going to visit a patient--that someone had made a mistake with someone's medicine. While I was walking inside a horrible rehabilitation and care center --another year, I had one patient --themselves--tell me that the nurse was going to put the wrong medicine in her, yet, luckily that patient was verbally able to open her mouth and tell the nurse, NO! This happens all the time in bad hospitals and inside bad rehabiltation and care centers and inside horrible nursing homes, yet you do not see this coming out in the news, do you?

I vote for truth. I vote for truth today. If you are a worker inside any of these places, you need to come forward and say the truth when you see a mistake. Yes, that is correct, you need to come forward. If your supervisor does not want to hear the truth then go over their head and go to the owner of the hospital or nursing home. But just keep going and complaining until you reach someone who will take action and rectify those problems.

Are you working inside a bad nursing home or inside a bad rehabilitation and care center? Are you just waiting so that you can reveal all the horrible things that are still happening inside of those places? Perhaps today is the day that you should come clean. Come and tell me by email , what is happening inside those facilities that should never be happening. You can do it. Come share your thoughts, your honesty , your truth and your experience.

Are you afraid to report the mistake because you still work there? Aren't you obligated to report mistakes by law? If you see mistakes made and you neglect to report them don't you realize that someone does see the mistake with you? Yes, that Someone is God. So while you think you are covering up your mistakes or someone else's mistakes, in actuality, there is Someone watching over you. And do you feel even a twinge of guilt when you think of the things that you have covered-up in that nursing home or rehabilitation and care center? You should. Time to come clean is now. If you are the Director of Social work inside of a bad nursing home or inside of a bad rehabilitation and care center, perhaps it is time that you come clean and take the shades off the cover up.

It is because people cover-up their negligence and lack of care--just because of the cover-ups, that these events are allowed to continue to happen in our facilities. Come clean. If you are reading this and you have covered up something that you should not have covered up, you need to be honest now, and tell the truth, finally.

There are several health care issues that are in the news and in the minds of many people these days. Perhaps because of the push for universal health care, misuses of the current health care system have come to light. The health care issues that plague Americans need to be addressed with intelligent debate and understanding.

One of the health care issues is the overuse of emergency rooms by the poor. It is not their faults. They are simply responding to a situation in which they have no other recourse. For example, a low-income family may have a child with a cut finger. If they had insurance, the parents would take the child to a doctor's office or an urgent care clinic to get the finger stitched up.

Since they have no such option, they take the much more costly route of going to the emergency room for the same service. This puts a strain on emergency rooms and costs taxpayers much more than if the poor families were given adequate medical coverage in the first place. Health care issues like this one are difficult to fathom when there are so many sources of cheaper medical care.

Other health care issues involve preventative medicine. Insurance companies do not all support the patient's right to preventative medical screening procedures and treatments. This also makes health care more expensive in the long run.

Many health care issues revolve around the older population. There are so many elderly people who are given little or no help with their prescription medications. Insurance companies make drug coverage available - at a price that is so high that most seniors cannot afford it. This does little to resolve these health care issues.

With all the health care issues that are in the public eye, there needs to be a better system of communication on these subjects. People can have an impact on their health care system if they know where to have their ideas on health care issues heard. It is time for the government and other organizations to give them a voice.

Privacy! Does any hospital or nursing home official or staff member know what true privacy is? Do they know how to fully protect a patient's privacy? There is one large hole in the privacy principle inside of most large medical facilities and inside of many nursing homes or rehabs.

Where is the gap? Right up and down. You heard correctly. The gap is up and down the elevator, inside the elevate and to and from the elevators. Most staff members think that they have privacy in elevators inside of medical buildings but there is nothing further than the truth. How many times have you heard doctors and nurses discussing patient's medical history or current conditions inside a public elevator? Probably many times. Yet , also inside those elevators are guests, visitors, family members and even , sometimes, there are patients inside the elevators.

Once employees begin discussing patients --while those employees are still in the building, those employees are denying the right to privacy to all patients. You cannot discuss medical options, surgery, patients' histories and other related issues inside of elevators and expect any privacy at all. Look around you while in the elevator. Do you see those other people? One of them can be a friend, family member or associate of a patient that you are talking about.

Heed all privacy rules, especially the privacy rules inside of elevators; Do not discuss patients or related topics while you are on the elevator. This is the only way to be a real professional.

Today, there are more and more experience mammographer's willing to pick up extra shifts that in anytime before. It is easier to find a multi trained mammographer that can be used in other disciplines and primarily benefit your staffing agency.

You are able to charge a higher fee for a mammographer and thereby pay a higher fee for the multi-licensed technologist.

But, how do you find the mammographers?

There are many ways to market your staffing agency to get ahold of mammographers.

But, lets look at a direct example of a need that needs to be filled today.

Lets assume a hospital or clinic calls your staffing agency and asked you if you are able to find a mammographer for next week.

What do you say?

Say yes! You can. Ask to sign a contract, if the contract has not been already signed. Make sure they know much will be charged for covering for the mammographer.

If this facility called you once, they will call you again. Secure the contract by finding a mammographer.

This is what you will do. Begin calling facilities quickly, ask if they know any mammagraphers willing to work next week at your rate.

Please keep in mind, you will have to entice the mammographer, and the only way you will do that is by paying for it.

Listen, you want to secure your contract. Go ahead and loose money on the front end, to make money on the back end. If they called you for a mammogapher and signed a contract, you then can go back and try to cover other shifts.

When you compose a business letter, there are certain essential elements that you need to include in order for your letter to be effective. If you are writing a letter to a healthcare company, medical insurance company, or to any Medicare, Medicaid or other health-related company about any medical care, hospitalization, or insurance, there are key elements that you need to include in order for your letter to receive quick, proper attention and action.

Your letter will be effective if you are sure to include these important dates, times, facts or numbers:

1. Patient's name
2. Name of doctor, hospital, insurance or other important information
3. Date of Service (This is important to include-not only date of recent letters but date of service)
4. Your home address and mailing address.
5. Your email address and phone number
6. Account number , transaction number
7. Invoice Number
8. Contact name or number (on your part and their part).
9. Reason for writing.
10. Result that you want to achieve. (For example, you might write, "I want an immediate credit or refund of two hundred dollars).
11. Location of hospital or doctor or LOCATION where the service was done (sometimes lab work will be done at a different location than the doctor's address).
12. Specific reason for test or procedure.
13. Also, add CC --if you are sending copies to anyone else.


It is essential that all of these items (and possibly more) be included in any letter that you are writing to any health care service, company, hospital or medical service, including ambulance services.

Hope this helps you. In future articles, I am going to post links so that you can see some form letters for yourself. This should make things easier for you.

Are you currently considering a nursing home stay for either yourself or a loved one? In either case, you would expect to receive the best care, especially for the very expensive prices nowadays, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, locating a facility that provides genuine quality care may be tantamount to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. Know the truth about nursing home or assisted living facilities before you decide.

I have been involved with health care for more than 15 years as a Combat Medic in the United States Army, a Certified Nurse Assistant, Physical Rehab Aide and Occupational Rehab Aide in California and the suburbs of Illinois. My wife is a Registered Nurse with more than 11 years of experience, and like myself, the majority of the experience is in nursing home or assisted living centers.

1989 was the year I became employed in my first nursing home. One of the many duties of a CNA, or certified nurse assistant, is to help the residents of the nursing home with their morning routine. While assisting a certain resident, I noticed the sliding doors of her closet were broke and one of them wouldn't open without forceful tugging. After getting her clothes together, I opened a drawer for some socks and a few roaches crawled out from the haphazardly bundled clothing. I later discovered most of the rooms in this particular facility were in the same appalling condition.

Mysterious injuries to some of the mentally handicapped residents also created rumors of abuse. Yet, no one seemed to know anything about it. Through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the federal government is suppose to conduct on-site inspections of nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid and to recommend sanctions against those homes that are violating health and safety rules. Yet, this particular facility, on several occasions, somehow received a Five Star rating after "inspections".

I assumed I made a bad employment choice and the next nursing center would be better. I was wrong. Within three months of employment at a different facility, a couple of senior residents confided that a certain nursing assistant was handling them roughly. Being the young newbie to the status quo, I hesitated to act. I was aware the elderly could be quite fragile, so perhaps the manhandling they described was a misunderstanding. Then I witnessed this same assistant "person" placing a soiled diaper onto the face of a resident several times in a teasing manner. I had seen enough, I brought this to the Director of Nursing (D.O.N).

I was not aware at the time however, that both the nurse of that shift and the D.O.N were both friends of the abusive assistant. Therefore, when a meeting was finally convened on the matter about a month later, you can probably imagine what the outcome was. My heated defense of the residents fell on deaf, dumb and blind, ears. The so-called nurse defended the abuser and the D.O.N merely pointed a finger at this assistant and said, "You were wrong." and absolutely nothing else followed, not even a written reprimand. However, I became known as the "trouble-maker" shortly after the meeting.

Fortunately, there was some poetic justice; the abusive assistant was later fired for getting into a "fist-fight" in an elevator with another assistant. This was a "Holy" facility in the suburbs of Illinois.

A large man with documented psychological problems abused other residents at the last facility in which I was employed. Although there were several staff complaints and he choked a female caregiver at one point, his transfer to a more appropriate facility was continually delayed to maintain the profits of his stay. It therefore seemed unconscionable to hear the, oddly high-strung, administrator of this same facility was rumored to be embezzling holiday funds that were meant for the caregivers.

When I learned a new policy required completely untrained caregivers to pass medication to the residents, I began to update my resume, and when I learned that there wouldn't be a nurse at all for the night shift, I turned in my two weeks notice. It was an obvious attempt to save money by limiting or eliminating professional care. These facilities never mention to visiting family members that when the patient or resident census is low, the nursing assistance is often cut to save money. This practice can lead to neglect, which tends to create new issues, such as bedsores for the bedridden residents.

There was a certain focus prevalent among the many facilities in which both my wife and I were employed and apparently, nothing has changed. They all claimed the well-being of the resident is the primary concern; some even placed impressively framed statements or plaques on the walls with their creeds of care. There was no fine print however, that stated the true primary concern above all else was Money. Making money and saving money. A single resident brings in five to eight thousand dollars a month and in "special care units" such as an Alzheimer's unit, it can be $10,000 a month. Thus, everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING else, is of lesser importance. What makes this statement all the more outrageous is that it may actually sound naïve to some, in today's corporate controlled world. "Of course it's about money, what else could it be about?"

It should be mentioned the examples given above are extreme and may not necessarily occur in all nursing centers. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on February 5, 2008 named 4,037 nursing homes whose pressure sore and/or physical restraint rates it says have targeted them for "improvement". Thus, anyone who is considering a nursing home or assisted living facility stay, for either a loved one or themselves, should consider and understand the reality of these facilities and the possible measures that can be taken to promote better care.

So, what can you do if you believe extended assisted living or nursing care is needed for you or a loved one? Here are some suggestions and options you might want to consider.

- If distance is not a major concern, you may be able to locate a decent facility via the Senior Housing Net.com site. After choosing a place, if you have the means, research the facility. Find out what you can about it before you visit it. Perhaps you can check for recent complaints, or any history of lawsuits, with the Better Business Bureau online. If this is not an option, arrange a visit and ask the residents about the care, their rooms, the food, etc.

- Notice if you can detect urine when you enter the facility. If there is no one in the immediate area and the odor is very noticeable, we suggest that you turn around and leave. It is a telltale sign of poor sanitation and or possible neglect of bedridden patients.

Most assisted living centers are modeled impressively to give a beautiful "Home-like" appearance and most new residents agree it is much better than the sterile-looking hospital appearance of many nursing homes. However, do keep in mind; it is not necessarily an assurance of superior care. In other words, appearances can be deceiving.

- Ask about the training background of the CNAs (certified nursing assistants) or caregivers, they will be assisting you or handling your loved one the majority of the time. Many assisted living centers do not require their caregivers to be certified assistants, choosing to hire untrained or inexperienced caregivers who are then asked to attend an in-service or two.

- How many caregivers or CNAs are assigned to each unit? How many nurses are there to a unit? Is the ratio to patients or residents adequate for dependable care?

If you must stay at a facility of questionable quality, try to arrange any of the following:

- If possible, have a lawyer present when filling out the admission forms. Some may say it is an unnecessary waste of money, however, nursing facilities abhor any possible legal action against them and a lawyer intimidates much like a wooden cross does when held up to vampires.

- Arrange periodic unannounced visits from family or friends. This serves more than one purpose. First, it provides witnesses to any neglect or problems. Second, it helps keep the staff on their toes regarding your care. Should any incidence of abuse occur, a quick internet search provides a long list of nursing home abuse lawyers.

- If you are a visiting family member and your loved one is in bed most of the time, check for any bedsores on the heels, hips, buttocks, back or elbows. It is your Right to thoroughly question any injuries and be certain they have been properly documented and the doctor has been informed.

- If it is within your budget, you may choose to hire a reliable private sitter to provide one-on-one assistance or care within the facility. Many families prefer this option as it provides not only constant personal attention but companionship as well. Facility staff appreciates it for the relief it can bring during a high census. As an experienced private sitter, I can attest that it is much more preferable to care for one patient than to juggle ten or twelve.

- Another option that may save you money is to hire a private home sitter. Many patients obviously prefer this because it allows them to stay in their home with a caregiver to assist them. A nurse will often be required to make periodic visits as well for any medication that must be administered. There are many agencies to assist you with this.

Although there are many negative stories about nursing facility care, it does not mean you, or a family member, will have the same negative experiences. Believe it or not, there are plenty of satisfied residents, or patients, who do not regret their move into an assisted living or nursing home and who have made new friends.

So, now that you have been given some worst-case scenarios, here's hoping you are prepared for the worst but experience the best.

4 Cardiac Hospitals in India providing world class treatment in India.

These are some of the Cardiac Hospitals in India providing world class treatment in Cardiac treatment:

Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery At Apollo Hospital, Bangalore is the newest addition to the ever-growing network of Apollo Hospitals all over the world. The hospital is equipped with some of the most advanced facilities in the world and some of the most eminent names in several medical specialties and superspecialities.

The doctors at Apollo Hospitals Bangalore have been chosen after an extensive process where their commitment and expertise is assessed in equal measure. Most of them have studied, trained or worked abroad at eminent institutions. The hospital has over 100 consultants available round the clock.

Cardiology is one of the Centres of Excellence at the Apollo Hospital, Delhi

The Centres of Excellence at the Apollo Hospital, Chennai are Cardiology & Cardiothoracic Surgery The hospital has a number of Specialised Clinics that offer advice, treatment and tips to patients and their family.

The Apollo Hospital Chennai are performed 27,000 heart surgeries with a success rate of 99.6%, on par with global standards.

Performance management experts agree that scorecard systems are the means to an end. The end is usually in the form of attaining a specific company goal. The means, not being the factors to achieving success, are ways to realizing strategies that lead to obtaining the goal. This can be best explained by identifying the elements involved in implementing the system. And it also involves the identification of the four dimensions covered by such system. Most organizations follow the same metrics. In the health care sector, the case is special. That is why they are urged to adopt a health care facilities scorecard system.

Scorecards do not work without the necessary metrics or key performance indicators. These are specified areas of a health care organization where outputs are evaluated, results are analyzed, and reports are obtained to make crucial decisions. Health care providers are different from most types of business. That is why its indicators are also quite unique. The four KPIs or dimensions used in the scorecard system are customer perspective, social accountability, internal processes, and financial.

Customer perspective is one dimension that involves reviewing people's perception and experience. Normally, it involves the process of obtaining the expectations of a customer before he is admitted and inquiring about the effect of the service offered by the facility. It also requires the knowledge of how customers think of the availability of medical equipment, the quick response of the staff, and the overall cost of the treatment.

On the financial side, the indicators are usually drawn from certain aspects, such as developmental cost of new facilities and medicines, profit from operation, and accounts receivable. By measuring this area, health care managers will be aided in making judgments based on financial performance and progress.

The operational dimension, on the other hand, has something to do with activities related to the everyday activities of the health care provider. Usually, these are: the number of queues, express patient arrivals, volume of surgical incidents, whether outpatient or inpatient, time for new medicines and facilities to develop, and average duration a patient stays in the clinic.

The fourth dimension of the health care scorecard system is social accountability. Since health care providers are service oriented, it is important that the organization's corporate responsibilities must be felt and made visible in the community. Examples of measurable social activities are health education seminars, public heath care programmes, employee development, health awareness initiatives, promotion of proper waste disposal, and charity involvements.

It is not all the time, though, that health care managers should focus on all four dimensions, as it would become a waste of time to spend more on areas that produce unnecessary results. For leaders to practically measure crucial areas, the factors of the scorecard system must be clearly identified. There are actually six and these are: units of analysis, purpose, audience, method, data, and results.

By examining the factors, managers can allocate their time and funds efficiently. In the audience factor, for example, if there is a large number of patients and workers to evaluate, full attention and financial aid must be given. Remember that every second, every dime, and every activity matters. So for health care facilities scorecard to work, one should identify the indicators and consider the factors.

Emotional decisions or decisions that you make when you are in pain, or suffering, or decisions, or decisions that you make after you have just had surgery, or decisions that you make when you are heavily medicated, are "iffy" decisions. What do I mean by "iffy". Well, I wonder "if" you were not in pain or suffering or if you had not just been operated on or if you were not heavily medicated, would you have made that same decision in the same way in the same time of your life. Or was your decision making process governed by drugs or by your physical or emotionally-weary conditions?

If you go to any of the 12-step programs, the first thing that they will tell you is to refrain from making any important life decisions for 90 days. Yet, you can come out of open-heart surgery and have medical staff thrust fifty-page documents at you for you to sign and no one sticks up for you and no one tells you to wait or to have your family or your family lawyer present for that very serious document-signing.

Why is this that no one protects patients from signing documents that they clearly do not want to sign, yet there is a protection for those who are enrolled inside of a 12-step program?

The answer is in what the medical facilities, doctors, surgeons and rehab places stand to gain from those signatures Once the nursing homes and the rehab places put their enrollment applications and admissions documents in front of you-the patient, you are probably and usually too tired, too drained, and too emotionally and too physically-weary to argue the point. Say you do not want to sign the documents? The facility has you practically hostage, by telling you that the documents are routine documents and you trust the facility because you think they are there to heal and to help you.

But rather, the truth is, there are some employees in that facility whose main job is to get your money, get your social security checks and get your disability and your homes away from you. Can you believe that ? It is those social workers who are there employed by these rehab places and nursing homes that want to know all of your financial business EVEN if you have come into the place saying and insisting that you have private insurance and EVEN though you say and insist that you are not applying for Medicaid or medicare. They want all of your information as part of a routine application.

Do not believe the words routine because there is nothing further from the truth. What might be routine for the medical place is not routine for you or for your finances. When they say that word routine to you in respect to applications, enrollments admissions or documents when you first come into rehab or into nursing homes, they mean that they are routinely going to try and get all your assets, all your social security, and any and all payments that you have due to you. Of course there are some laws that protect you. But most times, those documents that they ask you to sign are one-sided documents all in favor of the rehab place or of the nursing homes.

Think twice before signing anything at all. Insist that you have friends and family there if there are multitudes of documents to be signed. In fact, even if they want you to sign only one document or one page, insist that your family member or your private personal lawyer be present. Do not, under any circumstance take any lawyer or legal representative that this place provides or calls for you. You need someone independent.

Watch out for all hoe documents. You could be signing away your entire home, all and any assets, funds and bank accounts, and your entire future. The author is not a medical or legal professional and has published this article for entertainment, enjoyment and information only. This article and other articles by the same author are not intended to be any legal or medical advice, so consult your own professionals before taking any serious action that might affect your life, nursing home stay or finances.

ALERT: Do not be fooled by the word routine uttered from staff's mouth. These routine documents could turn out to be legally-binding contracts. You must have help and witnesses before signing any such papers. Any REPUTABLE nursing home or care facility will permit you to wait until family members are there for you. Unscrupulous nursing homes will wait until your family leaves and then ask you to sign the papers. Do not be duped!

Some of you may remember Tina Turner's hit What's Love Got to Do With It? In the song she sings that "love is a second hand emotion," and "who needs a heart when a heart can be broken." The song is a cynical take on loving and being loved. Many physicians and health care providers have become cynical and disillusioned. Medicine and love are almost never mentioned in the same breath. The practice of medicine is not necessarily viewed as a relationship with love at its center, but a transaction from the patient's viewpoint that is too often one sided. Health care providers are taught to be objective and to exhibit "detached concern." We are taught to protect ourselves from our own emotions as well as those of the patient. We know that love is fraught with pain and unpredictability. We don't want our hearts to be broken. We don't want to be overwhelmed by love and unable to act.
But, what if we stopped protecting our hearts so much? What if we looked at our patients with the same love that we reserve for our children, spouse, or our friends? After all, there really are not different kinds or degrees of love. Love is caring or loving another as you love yourself. Love is relieving the suffering of another. What would practicing medicine be like then? Can we practice with what Jack Coulehan calls "tenderness and steadiness." Can we stop hiding behind the shield of our white coats, and share our humanity with our patients? When we do, when we can sit and converse with our patients as human being to human being, and not expert to patient, then maybe, the practice of medicine will be more fulfilling. Maybe, when love has everything to do with it, when health care providers no longer fear the risk of their hearts being broken, then health care will be what it is meant to be, a loving relationship, for both doctor and patient.

Kwanza is an African American holiday that begins on December 26th and ends on December 31st. It is based on West African principles of the self in relationship to family and community. Although Kwanzaa is defined in relation to individual and social constructs it can also be viewed as a powerful tool for promoting physician and healthcare worker wellness and community health.
The six principles of Kwanza are directly applicable to physician and health care worker wellbeing and health:
n Umoja-Unity: Family and Community Support for your well being and the practice of medicine.
n Kujichagulia Self-Determination: Define Your Calling, Create and Live It.
n Ujima Collective Work and Responsibility: Advocate for our own and your patient's health together.
n Nia Purpose: Pool physician resources to sustain and develop institutions, practices, groups and health plans for promoting health and wellness of all people.
n Kuumba Creativity: To do as much as you can to innovatively promote wellness in yourself and your community.
n Imani Faith: To maintain and respect your spiritual roots and the interrelatedness of mind, spirit, and body.
Although Kwanza is based on West African Principles, this philosophy is universal. Incorporating these principles will promote wellbeing and ameliorate compassion fatigue in not only physicians, nurses and other health care workers. Remembering and acknowledging the Kwanza Dimensions of Health each and everyday will keep everyone on the path of health, as well as personal and professional joy and success. An individual is only as healthy and successful as his/her family, the community, the nation, and the world.