What Can The Surgeon General Really Do?

Photo credit

Earlier today, Vivek Murthy was confirmed to become the 19th Surgeon General of the United States. Much of the press in the past few hours have been celebrating the political victory over the GOP objections, particularly the National Rifle Association.

But does this mean anything for the health of America? Supporters site his medical credentials about being educated at the most prestigious institutions in the US. People also site his public health credentials, like his HIV/AIDS education program involving volunteers in India and the US.

But, when it comes down to it, what impact will this Surgeon General have on the health of America? What impact has any Surgeon General had on America? I have written in the past about my opinions on former Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. 

Did you know that the Surgeon General is at least 2 bureaucratic layers down from the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell? The Surgeon General reports to the Assistant Secretary for Health. What?

In the graphic above, you see all the "organizations that report to the Assistant Secretary for Health." That's a lot of agencies with a lot of agendas in a big federal government bureaucracy. And, oh by the way, starting in January, to get any laws passed, you have to talk to the Republican controlled House of Representatives and Senate. I guess you could get around that by passing more federal agency regulations.

In this politically charged society we live in now, where demonizing and name calling supersedes real dialogue and discussion, I know that I'll take some heat from my friends for this post. Don't get me wrong, I support Vivek Murthy, and I certainly wish him well as the nation's Surgeon General.

But, I'll still ask questions. What impact can this Surgeon General, or any Surgeon General have on policy making, given the Washington political environment? How much impact can this Surgeon General, or any Surgeon General have on America's health? What can the Surgeon General really do?

Mike Sevilla Radio Program Episode 331

Finally, after a few months, I did a podcast tonight which was Episode 331 of the Mike Sevilla Radio Program. Hard to believe that the first podcast was way back in 2007. In tonight's show, I updated some things about me, and I talked about some current events news stories.

In the video below (and in the picture above), you'll see the first part of the show. To listen to the entire audio podcast, you can check out the audio player above, or you can click on this link and download the show, and listen at your convenience.

My plan is to get back doing audio podcasts, and some video Google hangouts again, as my schedule allows. I miss talking over the internet airwaves, informing/entertaining all of you, and sometimes having a guest to chat about stuff. We'll see what happens. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Opening of Mike Sevilla Radio Program Podcast Episode 331 recorded November 15, 2014. Download entire audio podcast at http://bit.ly/MSRP331 - Also check out http://DrMikeSevilla.com

Welcome To My Website

Welcome to all of you who have read the article above from the Salem Regional Medical Center monthly newsletter or the SRMC Choices Community Newsletter. Thanks to everyone who have stopped me in the hall at the hospital, or come up and say Hi to me in the community, asking about social media and medicine.

It has been so much fun being involved with technology, social media, and medicine. As I have said in the past, everyone in the medical field needs to know that patients are finding information on the internet, and most of the information that is found on places like wikipedia is wrong!

If you're visiting my site for the first time, welcome! In addition to this website, I invite you to check out my YouTube videos (which include my TV interviews with WKBN), my podcast, my twitter account, my instagram account, my Linked-In account, and my Google Plus page. If you enjoy what you read here, I encourage you to subscribe to this website.

Most recently, I was the featured speaker at the Salem Regional Medical Center Annual Diabetes Fair at Salem Community Center on September 6, 2014. My entire talk is on video at the bottom of this essay. In addition, I have included some pics below from the event. Thanks for stopping by!

The Vice Speaker Chronicles: #AAFP2014 Sunday

Sunday at #AAFP2014 was mostly about a travel day getting to Washington, DC. Driving the Pennsylvania turnpike is all about what the weather is like. Luckily for me, it was mostly sunny weather, so driving was not that much of a big deal. I shared some pics during my travels on my instragram account.

Naturally, when I arrived in the city, I took some wrong turns, but my GPS was able to get me re-routed back to the hotel. The subway metro is really close to the hotel that I'm staying at, so it was fun to ride the metro again in getting to the conference hotel.

The main event of the evening was a Town Hall Meeting in which the AAFP President, AAFP President-Elect, Board Chair, and EVP/CEO all take questions from the audience. This is always an interesting back and forth discussion, which sometimes gets into heated discussions. But, at other times, this gathering turns into a type of pep rally for Family Medicine, in which there is applauding and cheering in talking about our specialty.

Here are three random thoughts from Sunday's events:

• The Family Medicine For America's Health Initiative is going to be HUGE: During the town hall meeting tonight, there was a lot of build-up to the announcement later this week. Falsely raising expectations? We'll see. If you haven't already, check out two sites talking about the initiative. FMAHealth.org is a site targeted at the Family Medicine audience. HealthIsPrimary.org is targeted at audiences like patients. payors (like insurance companies), and legislators. A general description of the process can be found at the AAFP website.
• Politics At The National Level Never Changes: I admit that I'm a political junkie sometimes at these AAFP meetings. Even before tonight's town meeting, you can see people "politicking" the candidate that they want elected to national office at this meeting. During tonight's town hall, you can tell which people went up to the microphone to make a speech, and which people actually had a question for AAFP leadership. Some people are always campaigning, and some people never change...
• Time Management For State Chapter Responsibilities: Since I'm an officer in the state level organization, there are more responsibilities and expectations from a state perspective than I've had before at this meeting. And, I've noticed that some of my friends are going through the same challenges, which makes chatting and catching up with them a little more difficult. The "work" and "fun" balance has gotten a little more difficult, but we'll figure it out...

#AAFP2014: The Vice Speaker Chronicles

Two months ago, at the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) annual meeting, I was elected an officer of the organization. The Vice Speaker position is the entry level position on the road to president of the OAFP.

Tomorrow, I travel to Washington, DC to attend the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) annual meeting. The OAFP officers, along with OAFP general membership will be in attendance at the AAFP Congress of Delegates for the first part of the week, then the AAFP Assembly the second part of the week.

I look forward to this gathering because it's a great opportunity to catch up with long time friends and to meet new people. For the next few days, I will document my observations and opinions in my "Vice Speaker Chronicles."

Here are three observations as I think about tomorrow's commute to the Nation's Capitol:

• First National Conference as OAFP Officer: This will be a different and new experience of the meeting being an officer and member of the OAFP Executive Committee. I'm very excited about these new roles and responsibilities.
• #AAFP2014 Social Media Ambassador: As I have mentioned previously, I have volunteered to be what is called a "Social Media Ambassador" for this year's AAFP meeting. I'm very excited to be a part of this "Ambassador" team to raise the visibility for the meeting to those on social media. Even though #aafpCOD is the official hashtag for the Congress of Delegates part of the meeting, I will be using #AAFP2014 on twitter and instagram.
• Starting The Conversation of the 2015 National Conference of Constituency Leaders: The Spring AAFP Leadership meeting has been renamed and re-imagined. I hope to get people thinking and talking about that during this week. If you haven't already seen the Star Trek themed promotional video, check it out below!

NCCL In May of 2015! Celebrating 25 years of American Academy of Family Physicians leadership.

CDC: Breach In Protocol = Blame The Victim

I was wrong. Ever since the early days of Ebola in the USA, I've been a defender of what the CDC has been saying and doing. That is, until yesterday. As I was driving home from a meeting, I had the live press conference on with CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, as he was discussing the newly diagnosed case of a health care worker in Dallas.

"The fact that we don't know about a breach in protocol is concerning, because, clearly, there was a breach in protocol," Frieden said, followed by, "Infections only occur when there's a breach in protocol." Really Dr. Frieden? This person already has Ebola, why not kick them when they're down and blame them they have Ebola.

Following this weekend, here's where I'm at with things:

• I Dare Dr. Tom Frieden To Visit This Infected Health Care Worker In Dallas: Why not show us the CDC protocols that you are talking about? Show us that you won't get Ebola, and that may start to get some credibility back to the CDC.
• Stop Flights From The Ebola Infected Areas in Africa: I know that people have been talking about this for weeks. But, with this 2nd infected case, shouldn't this be a sign to try to limit the problem to over there?
• Feels Like 1981 All Over Again: One thing that I actually agree with Dr. Frieden is that this time in history feels like the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the USA in 1981-82. There was a lot of uncertainty and fear out there. That was when I first started hearing terms like Pneumocustis Carinii, Kaposi Sarcoma, LAV virus, and HTLV-III virus.

If Dr. Frieden is accusing this person of "Breach In Protocol," I'm accusing the CDC of a "Breach In Preparedness" in getting this country ready for the known Ebola threat. I am finally agreeing with the people saying that the CDC is out there trying to calm the public. But, they are not doing a good job at this, especially when you blame the victim for getting Ebola. I mean, if those brave US troops get Ebola while trying to help the African nations, are we going to blame them for a "Breach In Protocol?"

Previewing #NCCL2015 Leadership Conference

Thanks to our pal Kim Yu for joining Gerry Tolbert and me on tonight's edition of Countdown to #AAFP2014. For the first portion of tonight's show, Gerry and talked about the first part of the week which will be the AAFP Congress of Delegates meeting.

Then, we received a message from Kim if she could join the show. And, yes, it took me 18 minutes to figure out how to do that - Sheesh. Even though Kim was feeling ill, she felt strongly about joining us for "the big reveal" of our promo video.

The AAFP National Conference of Constituency Leaders will take place in April 2015, and during tonight's show, we premiered a promo video with a Star Trek theme with the cooperation of AAFP Board leaders. You'll see the video at the bottom of this post, and you can also access at http://bit.ly/NCCL2015

As I've said previously, I'm part of an awesome team of people who will be Social Media Ambassadors at the #AAFP2014 conference. We'll be tweeting out using the hashtag. We'll be taking photos and posting places like instagram. We'll be recording video interviews, and doing other cool stuff.

The new promo video is below. Please, please, please share the link on your twitter and Facebook feeds. I'm really hoping to have a bunch of views going into the DC meeting in a couple of weeks. In addition, for you audio listeners, you can download the audio podcast at this link, or just listen in the player below. I'm trying this out to see if there is interest in this. I'll try pretty much any social media format, and you know I have! Enjoy!

#AAFP2014 In Less Than Two Weeks

It's hard to believe that it's less than 2 weeks until the best Family Medicine conference of the year which will be the 2014 American Academy of Family Physicians Assembly in Washington, DC. The hashtag for the meeting will be #AAFP2014. I talked a little bit about the meeting in a previous post.

Along with my good friend Dr. Gerry Tolbert, we'll be hosting a Google Hangout on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 9pm Eastern Time at this link to talk further about #AAFP2014. In addition to this, we'll be talking about the policy part of the week called the Congress of Delegates.

Finally, we'll be making a HUGE announcement with regard to the AAFP spring leadership meeting now called the AAFP Leadership Conference for Current and Aspiring Leaders, the Annual Chapter Leader Forum, and the National Conference of Constituency Leaders (#aafpNCCL). The one clue you get is the picture below. Hope to see you for the show!

Photo Credit Above: Shutterstock

Dear Facebook: Stay Out Of Health Care

Last week, the internet was a twitter (see what I did there) about the major health care story of ebola in the United States. However, there was also a interesting rumor announced at the end of last week, to which people should really be paying attention.

As reported by Reuters, Facebook is taking aim at health care, YOUR health care. "The company is exploring creating online 'support communities' that would connect Facebook users suffering from various ailments. A small team is also considering new 'preventative care' applications that would help improve their lifestyles," the article states.

Six years ago in 2008, I remember when Google tried to make a big splash with their Google Health product. That is now discontinued. I also remember in 2007 when Microsoft tried to make an impact with Healthvault. Of course, this year, Apple is trying to make in roads with their Health Kit software (I've written about that in the past at this link).

Will Facebook really make this happen? I don't think they should, and here are three reasons they should not:

• People's Lack Of Trust In Facebook: There are many stories about Facebook "Asking For Forgiveness" in breaking users privacy, instead of Facebook "Asking For Permission." I mean, people get upset if private photos get mistakenly shown on Facebook. What will happen if their private health information gets out there?
• Online Support Communities Already Exist: I really enjoyed listening to the vocal E-Patient community respond to this. "Hey Zuck, there are already communities out here. Contact us and we'll tell you about it." Don't quote me, but I think our pal Dr. Larry Chu, the Dean of Stanford Medicine X, and E-patient Champion, said that quote :)
• Potentially Less Sharing on Facebook: I've already written about "The End of the Medical Chart" in which patients would potentially ask their physician to not include information because of fear of hacking. People will do the same thing if this Facebook initiative happens.

However, here are three reasons why Facebook will ignore me, and many other people, and absolutely make this happen:

• Everyone Is On Facebook: Every time there is some kind of privacy breach, people get upset and threaten to leave, but they don't. Every few months, a new website like Ello comes along claiming to the anti-Facebook, but no one leaves to go there. Facebook will be around, and when it comes down to it, we put up with the Facebook screw-ups, and continue using the service.
• Lessons Learned: I think that Facebook has done its homework and has learned from the failed Google Health and Microsoft Healthvault examples of the past. It will be interesting to see how they roll this out when they're ready.
• No One Is Going To Stop Them: We, in the healthcare field, have been asking mainstream tech companies to look more at health care as an opportunity. 2015 will be the year that the major Silicon Valley players will be looking at how to make our health better. Will physicians, providers, patients, and the industry be ready?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Countdown To #AAFP2014 & Conference Overview

Thanks to our pal Dr. Gerry Tolbert for the fun show tonight where we mostly talked about the upcoming 2014 American Academy of Family Physicians Assembly which will take place October 21-25, 2014 in Washington, DC.

We reviewed many of the exciting elements of the meeting including the conference app, the conference brochure, and the upcoming announcement of Family Medicine For America's Health initiative. The main stage speakers include Dr. Eric Topol, Anna Quindlen, and Dr. Dike Drummond. There will also be some specialized content tracks during the conference in the areas of Direct Primary Care, ICD-10, and Patient Centered Medical Home.

There will also be numerous networking and social events during the conference. The Member Interest Groups that will be meeting include Direct Primary Care, Rural Health, Hospital Medicine, Independent Solo/Small Group Practices, and Emergency Medicine and Urgent Care.

I'm excited to announce that I will be a part of a small group of AAFP members designated as "Social Media Ambassadors" during the conference who will be using twitter (the official hashtag is #AAFP2014), Facebook, instagram, and other social media platforms. Our group hopes to bring you some behind the scenes access to some aspects of the conference.

Towards the end of the show, we talked about yesterday's announcement about the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States. During the show, Gerry showed pictures of their newborn twins. And, there were even live technical glitches which we had to deal with. It's live internet broadcasting, you know.

This show was merely a warm up to next week's extravaganza! Please join us on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 9pm Eastern Time at this link where we will share with you something that we created having to do with leadership, Family Medicine, the AAFP, and our friends! It's going to be very exciting, and you just have to be there live!