Just about all health care providers have need of stethoscopes. Whether you’re a nurse, respiratory therapist or a medical doctor, the need to auscultate the chest, lungs and heart is a necessary and important part of your work. In deciding from the many stethoscopes to choose from it’s important to keep in mind what you’ll be using your stethoscope for. For general purpose listening, stethoscopes are excellent tools and come at a very good price.

Cardiologist may like to choose from stethoscopes that can record sounds that can later be played back on their computer.

Comfort when using stethoscopes.

Many people don’t realize that a stethoscope and actually be uncomfortable to use if the ear pieces are not soft. Obtaining the right ear piece that is soft and comfortable is very important if you plan to use your equipment frequently.

Generally, the thicker the tube, the better sound conduction you’ll experience. stethoscopes come in both single and double tube models. The single tube splits into two separate tubes while the double tube model stethoscopes send sound waves to each ear through a single tube, possible allowing for better sound interpretation.

If you work in the health care field you’ll need medical supplies to help you with your work. Quality products that you know you can depend on will give you greater confidence during stressful situations.

About The Author

Mike Yeager, Publisher

http://www.a1-medical-supplies-4u.com/

mjy610@hotmail.com

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Over the last 15 years there has been a cry to curb the costs of health care and from this cry has arisen the HMO or Health Maintenance Organization. This entity which is more common in the US has in the last 5 years also begun to creep into Canada.

The philosophy behind HMO’s is that efficient business practices can help curb health care costs and by doing so also improve the quality of healthcare.

Is this however actually happening?

Well let’s take a closer look.

Physicians who work in HMO’s are caught, in a manner of speaking, between a “rock and a hard place”.

That is they are caught between maintaining costs of providing services below a certain defined threshold while providing the top quality healthcare demanded by their patients. Their ability to achieve this feat ultimately becomes a measure of their performance and is reflected in their income.

In today’s litigious healthcare environment the cost of personal liability insurance has risen significantly across the profession in North America. Most of these costs are born by individual physicians.

As conventional medicine rarely attempts to uncover and treat the underlying causes of illness, rather it aims at symptom control, most patients are essentially placed “on ice” until their problem festers and re-erupts in some other more serious form. The patient then presents once again to the HMO physician who is once again faced with the task of “hiding” the problem.

Each time that “symptom management” is attempted more invasive and harmful treatments need to be employed. These treatments are also increasingly more expensive. Throughout this process the patient is under the delusion that because they are receiving such expensive treatment, supported by expensive and advanced technology, they are receiving top quality healthcare.

In fact this is far from the truth.

What is actually happening is that they are being made progressively more ill and their financial resources are being progressively being depleted.

It’s interesting that many individuals are awakening to the truth of what is going on and are beginning to take greater responsibility for their own health by educating themselves about prevention.

Prevention is about proper nutrition, regular exercise, awareness and avoidance of toxic chemicals (i.e. environmental, hygiene products, drugs, alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, EMF’s, etc.), regular and ongoing detoxification routines that cleanse the liver, use of therapeutic grade essential oils that boost immune system function, adequate supplementation with minerals & vitamins, regular de-stressing through approaches such as meditation, yoga, MRP, chi gong etc, and so on.

Many will say that they don’t have the time or money for such preventative approaches. Well in the long run I would say that it is actually a much cheaper and healthier approach than the conventional one. The only thing that is stopping you from adopting it is fear.

Nick Arrizza M.D. is trained in medicine and psychiatry. He is an international healer and coach as well as the developer of the powerful Mind Resonance Process(TM) MRP

YL Web Site: http://www.youngliving.org/arrizza
Personal Web Site: http://www.telecoaching4u.com

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In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its restrictions on direct-to-consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals. Prior to this ruling, drug manufacturers were prohibited from mentioning both the name of the drug and its indications in consumer-directed advertisements without also including a large amount of technical information about the drug, including all known side effects, contraindications, and dosage recommendations (Stevens, 1998).

In addition to interfering with the appeal of the advertisements, such requirements
rendered broadcast ads infeasible due to time constraints, and hindered ads in print
media due to cost and space availability. These requirements were abolished in the
1997 FDA policy changes, and pharmaceutical companies were permitted to market
drugs by name as treatments for specific conditions, with the minimal requirement
that ads give mention to major risks identified in clinical trials (Melillo, 2001). As a
result, manufacturer expenditures on direct-to-consumer advertising, which totaled
$791 million in 1996, rose to $2.6 billion for the year 2000 (Mitchell, 2001).
Television, radio, and print media became saturated with ads promoting treatments
for conditions ranging from depression to high cholesterol.

Names such as Zoloft, Claritin, and Lipitor, which were previously known mostly to
health professionals, quickly became part of the national vocabulary. Consequently,
spending on prescription drugs has increased significantly over the past several
years as consumers are enticed to seek advertised medications (HealthBizNews.com,
2001). This new face of drug marketing has sparked a raging debate about the
accompanying effects on the health of the American public: does direct to consumer
marketing benefit the public by providing education about available treatments, or
does it diminish the quality of healthcare by raising costs and causing unnecessary
treatment? Proponents of direct-to-consumer, or DTC, pharmaceutical advertising,
most prominently the drug companies themselves, argue that DTC marketing
results in improved public health by increasing consumer awareness. According to
this view, direct marketing to the consumer alerts the public of the availability of
treatment for a given condition, a fact of which it may not otherwise be aware. This
knowledge may prompt people to seek medical help rather than unnecessarily
accepting their ailments (Miller, 1998). Furthermore, supporters claim that ads raise
awareness of undiagnosed conditions by providing information about symptoms.

Since countless Americans suffer from undiagnosed disorders-only half of the
estimated 16 million Americans with diabetes know they have the disease-the
motivation to seek treatment provided by these ads is a valuable public benefit
(Health Matters, 1998). Similarly, by prompting people to visit a doctor, ads may
help identify conditions unrelated to the specific area of concern. For example,
according to Mike Magee, a medical adviser for Pfizer, a large proportion of
consumers seeking Viagra would not otherwise see a doctor, so visits seeking help
for erectile dysfunction often uncover conditions warranting medical attention, such
as diabetes (Shapiro and Schultz, 2000). Some doctors support DTC ads as well,
claiming that they make their jobs easier by resulting in better informed patients.
Many ads, particularly for diabetes, stress the importance of self-management of
disease, which may increase compliance with doctors orders and result in reduced
need for more extensive medical care (New York Times, 2001).

Doctors appreciate having patients who are already briefed about current drug
therapies, which saves time in a medical system that often requires doctors to see
as many as thirty patients per day (New York Times, 2001). Critics of direct-to-
consumer drug ads, including the American Medical Association, insurance
providers, and many physicians cite increasing healthcare costs, improper
prescriptions, and corrupted doctor-patient relations as this type of marketing’s
major resultant evils. Substantial evidence exists that the escalation of DTC
advertising has increased expenditure on pharmaceutical purchases. Prescription
drug spending increased 84% between 1993 and 1998, and it is estimated that
consumer-directed advertising increased drug expenditure by $13 billion in 1998
alone (Cassels, 2001).

The twenty-five most advertised drugs of 2000 accounted for forty-one percent of
expenditure on new prescriptions (Sherrid, 2000). Escalating prescription cost is of
particular concern to healthcare providers such as HMOs and large corporations,
which face a choice between curbing costs and cutting benefits (Cassels, 2001).
Additionally, those without prescription drug coverage must pay the increased rates
out-of-pocket (Shapiro and Schwarz, 2000). DTC proponents counter arguments
centered on rising costs by claiming that increased outlays on prescriptions save
money in the long run by preventing the need for more extensive medical care
(Moore, 2000). Critics, however, cite the fact that the largest portion of the drug
industry’s advertising budget goes toward drugs for non-critical ailments such as
heartburn, allergies, and hair loss (Moore, 2000).

Another argument presented by DTC opponents holds that these ads result in
incorrect prescriptions by creating consumer demand for products regardless of
actual need. Critics believe that consumers are sold the idea that a pill can instantly
provide them with good health (Health Matters, 1998). Often, however, the drugs to
which consumers are exposed are not even the most effective, but simply the ones
with the largest advertising budgets (Headden and Melton, 1998). According to
Shapiro and Schultz, patients, if refused specific prescriptions, will frequently visit
another physician, who may comply with the request (2000). In addition to
unnecessarily adding to healthcare costs, patient demand pressures doctors to give
patients the drugs they request for fear of losing business (Shapiro and Schultz,
2000). Specific drug requests, according to Dr. Angelo Agro, often cause physicians
to lose credibility in the eyes of the patient, who has been convinced by
advertisements that the drug a physician refuses to prescribe is nonetheless the
best option (Tanner, 2001).

Responding to such concerns, the AMA, at its July 2001 meeting, debated a
proposal for the organization to encourage the federal government to ban all DTC
prescription drug advertising (Tanner, 2001). While I agree that public exposure
through advertising of the latest treatments for common conditions raises public
awareness and prompts people to visit physicians, I nonetheless believe that direct-
to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising does not adequately justify its social costs.
In the case of overt maladies, such as allergies or depression, for which a large
share of advertised drugs are indicated, a condition affecting a person’s life to the
point of warranting medication would certainly cause him or her to notice it and
presumably to seek treatment. While many other products, such as cholesterol
lowering drugs, are used to treat conditions of which an individual may not be
aware and that may eventually adversely impact health, these conditions would, in
nearly all cases, be uncovered during a routine examination. In both cases, the
central benefit accomplished by these ads is getting people through the doors of
doctors’ offices, an end that can easily be achieved more cheaply without the use of
DTC advertising. For example, less expensive public service campaigns encouraging
people to have routine checkups and informing the public of warning signs of
common conditions would achieve the same results without affecting the cost of
healthcare. As the situation now stands, the benefits that do result from DTC
advertising are purchased at the price of reduced healthcare quality for some.

As drug advertising drives up the cost of treatment, healthcare providers will be
forced to cut costs in other areas and may find it necessary to compromise coverage
by denying certain procedures or raising premiums. Increased premiums may drive
people who fund their own health insurance out of the system by making personal
insurance unaffordable. Additionally higher premiums may discourage large
employers, which often independently provide their employees with health
coverage, from continuing this practice. General Motors spent $900 million covering
prescription drugs in 2000, a 19% increase over the previous year (Cassels, 2001).
Escalating costs may render those without prescription coverage unable to afford
necessary medications. Furthermore, the production of a drug is only possible when
the disease it treats becomes understood through years of basic research, most of
which is conducted by publicly funded academic investigators. Since public money
lays the groundwork for pharmaceutical production, drug companies have a
responsibility to the taxpayers not to engage in practices that will result in a
reduction in the quality of healthcare.

The major problems underlying this situation is that, under our current insurance
structure, the costs of increasing drug prices do not accrue to the consumer and
thus do not decrease demand as they should in a free market system. As a result,
the pharmaceutical companies are not given proper incentive to control prices.
Insurance providers, rather than transferring rising costs to consumers through
reduced care, need to restore the incentive to curb drug prices and hold the
pharmaceutical companies responsible for their exorbitant budgets.

http://www.lonelycanuck.com

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