The PNWU Health Blog offers insight and first-hand accounts of life here at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences.
It includes contributions from current and former PNWU medical students, physicians and various members of an ever-expanding community aimed at highlighting care for the rural and underserved. If you have any questions, comments, concerns or ideas, or if you’d like to pitch a blog idea of your own, please contact us at publicity@pnwu.edu.
I am wasting the time of the emergency room staff. Please stop me.
This is not the blog post I intended to write. Instead, I intended to write about the how emergency rooms should be used for LIFE THREATENING emergencies only.
I wanted to talk to you about the sniffles of children, the coughs and wheezes of heavy smokers and the ever-urgent complaint of “I need a refill” that echo in emergency rooms across the country.
Read MoreThat morning was frigid -- the type of bitter cold that reminded you that winter was just around the corner. Our Emergency Department (ED) received the dispatch that a Jane Doe was en route. A couple on their morning hike in the foothills had found her. She was wearing cut off jean shorts and a blue tank top. She arrived with a paramedic on top of her performing CPR. She was purple -- so purple that she looked almost cartoon-like.
Read MoreI loved growing up with a doctor. It always gave me a sense of security, like if anything went wrong, he’d know what to do. My father was, and still is, an amazing man. He always put on a strong face and was there for my family when we needed him. He was our foundation, and he never let on if anything was troubling or not well within himself.
Read MoreDiscussing anything about sexual health at the doctor’s office is always awkward. I had been seeing my family doctor for almost 14 years before we fell into the topic, and when it finally came around, I had no idea how to react. I hadn’t even told any of my family that I was gay, let alone my doctor. And to make things worse, I deeply respected him; he was one of the primary people who inspired me to want to be a doctor in the first place. I didn’t want to let him down.
Read MoreAs I shook out the cobwebs and looked up from the splintered door that I had been slammed through, I saw his expression change. Tears began to pour from his eyes as he stared down at me; at what he had done to me. I’d never imagined that I would have been treated like that, and right then I knew that I had to leave.
Read MoreIt all started in Valdez, Alaska, where I was employed as a deckhand on a salmon fishing boat...
Taking advantage of a long-awaited day off -- I had spent the entire previous day rocking back and forth on the boat -- I decided to sleep in. When I awoke I hopped on my bike and headed around to the other side of Valdez harbor to have a shower at a fish processing plant that purchased the fish we caught. With the exhaustion -- and salmon scales -- of the previous day washed away, I climbed back aboard my bike feeling fresh.
Read MoreI LOVE this time of year.
Not only do graduations allow us the opportunity to celebrate years of hard work and tremendous accomplishment, but they also give us a chance to enjoy what are often some of the most influential, funny, and inspirational orations of our time: commencement speeches.
Read MoreSpeaking with love to the anti-vaccine crowd. A letter to anti-vaccine parents.
It is difficult to scroll through the internet without coming across articles about the horrors of vaccines.
They cause autism!
They contain dangerous chemicals!
We give too many too soon!
Read MoreMay is finally here! A month full of sunshine! Full-blow summer weather just around the corner!
Who can deny the blissful feeling of the sun on your face? That beautiful bronzed glow we acquire by spending time outdoors in the summer? It’s arguably the most invigorating spirit of the season, if not of the year! It’d be hard to find anyone who wouldn’t welcome warm weather, soft grass, and copious amounts of bright sunshine after the winter we’ve had.
Read MoreGrowing up, I never thought of my favorite pastimes – such as biking, roller blading, basketball, football and baseball -- as forms of exercise but, instead, as enjoyable activities that I could engage in with my family and friends. I participated in them for one simple reason: I found them fun. Whether I realized it or not, however, these activities played a huge role in keeping me fit throughout my teenage years.
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