Whose life is it anyway? - a transplant story

I subscribe to several free weekly newsletters from the New York Times - health, books, movies.  The health one this week included an article about one family's willingness to allow their loved one's death to become the opportunity for transplants for others.  And on Monday this week I'd had a senior English class in looking for material on medical ethics/issues in relation to their study of the play Whose life is it anyway?.  Serendipity?  Dunno, but I've joined the dots and the teacher is very happy to have an additional resource.

The article includes a video of the (unusual) meeting between the donor's widow and the people who received transplanted organs, as well as an illustration/graphic about transplantation.

Permalink to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/health/17organ.html

One to pass on to your English and PDHPE teachers?

Cheers

Ruth

New US Dietary Guidelines

A simple map to the land of wholesome, by Jane Brody in the New York Times, discusses the new US Dietary Guidelines.

The article begins:

For the first time since it began issuing dietary guidelines, the government offered new recommendations last month that clearly favor the health and well-being of consumers over hard-lobbying farm interests.


The new science-based Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released Jan. 31 by the Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, are comprehensive, sensible, attainable and, for most people, affordable. They offer a wide variety of dietary options to help you eat better for fewer calories without undue sacrifice of dining pleasure.

Now it’s up to consumers to act on this advice and put the brakes on runaway obesity and the chronic diseases that cost billions of dollars before they kill.

 
The article continues:

Here is a summary of the guidelines, which combine the goals of fewer calories — and especially nutrient-poor calories from sugars, fats and refined grains — with more emphasis on nutrient-dense foods:

• Eat lots more vegetables and fruits, filling half your plate with them.
• Choose lean meats and poultry, and replace some of them with seafood.
• Consume mainly nonfat or low-fat milk and other dairy products.
• Choose low-sodium products and use less salt and salty ingredients in food preparation.
• Eat more fiber-rich foods; replace most refined grains and grain-based foods with whole-grain versions.
• Use vegetable oils like olive and canola oil instead of solid fats like butter and margarine, but remember that all fats have lots of calories.
• Eat out less; cook at home more often.
• Drink water, calorie-free beverages like coffee and tea, and 100 percent fruit juice instead of regular sodas, fruit drinks and energy drinks; limit alcoholic drinks to one a day for women, two for men.
• Eat less and exercise more to achieve a better balance of caloric intake and output.

 Find the full pdf of the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans by clicking here.  Want to compare with the local version?  Find the pdf of the Dietary Guidelines for Australians by clicking here.  A blog entry to share with your Home Economics, PDHPE and science teachers; not just for the basic content, but for the implications about the influence of vested interests on public health initiatives.

Cheers

Ruth

Images: my own, using the Hipstamatic iPhone app (see my blog entry about this for more information) and a few moments at a local supermarket.  From memory, John S. lens and Kodot film.

Better Health Channel - excellent, reliable health info

If your students (or teachers eg. in PE or Science or Home Ec.) are after reliable health/medical information from an Australian source, try the Victorian government's Better Health Channel website.  Fact sheets, patient info, image library, quizzes, medical dictionary, medicines guide, a whole kit and caboodle of stuff that's a safer bet than Wikipedia (where, apart from the issue of veracity, you sometimes run into techno-vocabulary that's beyond the scope of school kids). 

The site will often come up high in Google searches, but why not direct the kids straight to a good site, rather than letting them loose in the wilderness that is health info on the internet?  The language level is accessible and clear for kids to understand, and the fact that it's Australian is important (if you're in Australia) - recipes reflect local ingredients, medicines have their correct local names, further links to support groups etc aren't going to recommend a fabulous organisation in Idaho or Yorkshire...

I was going to include a graphic (the site logo), but Blogger didn't want to play. Again. Sigh.

Cheers

Ruth

The happy life of teacher librarians: founts of knowledge

A couple of lovely girls, poring over a newspaper job section, called me over at lunchtime.

"Miss?"

"Yup?"

"Can you help us with this?"

"Sure."

"We're looking for part-time work."  First formal jobs, I'd be guessing.

"OK."  They're checking out something in the casual work section.

"What's a..." (one reads from the paper) "... lingerie restaurant?"

"Ah, well.  Not somewhere you'd want to work, sweetie.  I'd guess that the waitresses wearing as little as possible is a higher priority than the quality of the food."

"Ick!  No way!"

"Very pleased to hear it.  Wise decision."

"Thanks, miss."

"No worries."
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There are so many ways to be useful, as a teacher librarian.  Just last week at the school's Crossroads seminar (where all sorts of health issues are the topic under discussion by/with senior students) I had a couple of girls ask me earnestly at morning tea just how long a Pap smear took for the doctor to do.  All righty then, you say to yourself, if they're game to ask....without an exact minute count to hand, I had to resort to, ...ummm doctor picks up 'salad servers'....inserts.....time passes.... and so forth.  You get the picture.  The happy life of teacher librarians!  Absolute founts of knowledge!  Although I hadn't heard the analogy used in the intro to the section on checking for testicular cancer before...you know how you play a Playstation?..... see?  Always something to learn, too!!

Cheers, Ruth.

Health articles: NYT

The New York Times' Health section has a huge resource of articles with new ones added all the time.  There's also a weekly email newsletter you can sign up for, to track changes and read new articles you may be interested in.  One for your school's PDHPE and Home Ec. faculties to know about.

From memory (since I did it a long time ago) there's a once-only free registration to use the site.

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