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Funded
and published monthly by Judith Broadhurst
of Polished Prose editorial services, covering topics among
her writing and editing specialties. The news digest section is
compiled from various sources. Previous issues
are available in the Newsletter Archive section
of PolishedProse.com.
Unexpected
benefits of hiring a pro editor, and average rates
Two
subscribers recently asked me pretty much the same question: Why
should I bother using an editor, and how much would it cost? The
true value of an editor is not just to make sure your grammar
and commas are correct. For that, you can hire a proofreader for
around $20-35 per hour, depending on prevailing local rates and
the nature of the copy that you need to have checked.
What
professional editors really do is help you think through what
you write and save you from embarrassment, or worse. This sentence
from the current bestseller, Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution,
is a perfect example of what a truly good copy editor should catch
(but didn't, obviously):
"Results
of the analysis found the menu to meet or exceed Recommended Daily
Intake (RDI) requirements of nineteen of the twenty-four vitamins,
minerals and trace elements, and the remaining few (panthothenic
acid, sodium, magnesium, copper, chromium and molybdenum) can
be replaced with a supplement."
See
the problem? There are six of "the remaining few," cited in parentheses,
and that doesn't sync with "nineteen of the twenty-four," because
19 + 6 = 25. This is so clearly incorrect that I won't even quibble
with using "found the menu to meet or exceed," rather than the
more active wording, "the menu meets or exceeds."
The
goal: clear, consistent, concise and correct
My guess is that someone was instructed merely to proofread that
manuscript, not copyedit Atkins' book. There are significant differences
in what are widely known as the levels of editing, and there are
disparate definitions, but here's my own short version of what
an editor does, depending on what the author or publisher requests,
which often depends on time allowed, budget, permanence (or not)
of the publication and the author's ego:
(Please
follow the link below to read the rest of the story, which includes
a comparison chart for different levels of editing and authoritative
pay rates for freelance and staff editors.)
Full
article: Unexpected benefits of hiring a pro editor, and average
rates
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Health
effects of job insecurity |
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An article titled "The Effects of Past and Anticipated Future
Downsizing on Survivor Well-Being" (Kalimo, Taris and Schaufelt,
2003) in the April 2003 issue of the Journal of Occupational
Health Psychology intrigued me, because it purported to
be about a "study [that] deals with the health effects of
various types of downsizing-related reorganizations." Unfortunately,
that article didn't really address health effects, per se,
although it reflects the interest, since the late '80s, in
how surviving a layoff affects workers (see Ferrara- Love,
1998).
We
all know about the repeated reports of the deleterious effects
of stress on the immune system. So it doesn't surprise me
that several writers and editors I know in the Silicon Valley
and San Francisco Bay areas of northern California, who
have been unemployed for a year or more after being laid
off from jobs or contracts, are sick of the recession. Literally.
Many of the men, in particular, seem to chronically have
some upper-respiratory infection or always catch the latest
cold or flu, get sicker from it, and have a harder, longer
time recovering than most. Perhaps its sex or sex roles,
choice of occupation, temperament or living in an area particularly
hard hit by the recession that are the significant variables
or at least factors?
Out
of curiosity, I searched MEDLINE for job insecurity and
health or illness and for layoff and health (both
restricted to English and human) for research
results reported during just the past three years (2000-2003),
when the economy steadily worsened in the U.S. A recently
reported study affirmed that my colleagues' experiences
aren't uncommon.
- "A
cross-sectional relationship between job insecurity and
common infections or health complaints was found,"
[even when] corrected for health behavior, the presence
of a long-standing illness, and work-related demands."
(See Mohren, Swaen, van Amelsvoort, Borm, & Galama,
2003.)
- A
comment in a WHO Regional Office for Europe report based
on a five-year project begun in 1997 suggests that my
writer and editor acquaintances' chronic illnesses could,
indeed, be related to their choice of careers and location:
"The real determinants of health are not only one’s
genetic make-up and lifestyles, but also working conditions,
education, environment, social support and living conditions."
However,
the results from nearly a dozen more studies were surprising.
(To
read on, please follow the link to the full article, below.)
Full
article: Health effects of job insecurity »
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Consumer
info, e-health |
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Sustaining eHealth in challenging times,
eHealth Institute, report released April 2003
Summary: This (PDF) report summarizes the discussions
held during the Third Annual eHealth Developers Summit in
November 2002.
eHealth's influence continues to grow as usage of the Internet
by physicians and patients increases, Health
Care News, April 17, 2003 (PDF)
Summary: Results of two studies by Harris Interactive
for the Boston Consulting Group.
Study: E-mail counseling improves online weight loss program,
iHealthBeat (requires registration), April 9, 2003
Excerpt: "Patients at risk for Type 2 diabetes
who participated in both an Internet weight loss program
and additional behavioral counseling through e-mail lost
significantly more weight than those who only participated
in the basic Internet program, a study in the Journal
of the American Medical Association found. The study
suggests that individual e-mail counseling can produce behavioral
changes and weight loss that could reduce the risk of Type
2 diabetes, according to the searchers."
Health plans fall short in Web service, study finds,
Boston Globe, April 9, 2003
Excerpt: "Health insurers still lag other industries
dramatically in their use of the Internet for customer service,
according to a new study by Forrester Research. In many
cases, the kind of self-service customers are used to with
banks and airlines is still months or years away in health
insurance."
Survey: Number of online health users levels off, iHealthBeat
(requires registration), April 7, 2003
Excerpt: "The number of U.S. consumers who use
the Internet for health information has leveled off, following
several years in which the number of online health users
increased, according to a survey from Harris Interactive.
The survey also found that consumers with higher incomes
and college or postgraduate degrees were more likely than
other respondents to use the Internet for health information.
Fifty-two percent of adults looked online for health information
this year, compared with 53% last year, 47% in 2001, 34%
in 1999 and 27% in 1998."
uncertainty@dr-mail.com: Some doctors use patient e-mail in
their practices, but most aren't ready to log on,
Washington Post, April 1, 2003
Excerpt: "Doctor-patient e-mail communiqués
are still more the exception than the rule. According to
the American Medical Association, about 25% of physicians
contact at least some of their patients by e-mail. Among
the reasons doctors have been slow to embrace the concept:
worries about liability, patient privacy and reimbursement.
Lately, however, there have been signs resistance is beginning
to crumble."
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Health
psychology, addictions |
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Kicking the habit online,
HealthScoutNews, April 23, 2003
Excerpt: "Web sites designed to help smokers
kick the habit have the potential to be powerful smoking-cessation
tools, says a study in Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
Researchers at the Oregon Research Institute developed
their own Web site to test methods to recruit smokers to
such Web sites and to help smokers quit smoking. The study
enrolled more than 600 smokers.... The social support section
of the Web site was the most popular, while the library
was the second most popular. The majority of people who
visited the Web site were women. Several hundred people
responded to the three-month follow-up survey, and 32% of
those people reported that they quit smoking. But when the
researchers included people who didn't respond to the follow-up
survey as current smokers, the overall quit rate for the
entire group dropped to 18%."
I feel, therefore I am, New York Times, April
19, 2003 (requires registration)
Excerpt: "In short, Dr. [Antonio] Damasio [the head
of neurology at the University of Iowa Medical Center in
Iowa City and leading anti-Cartesian crusader] is at the
forefront of what neuroscientists are calling an 'affect
revolution' that is turning decades of scientific wisdom
on its head and reverberating through other fields as well....
His theory is both elaborate and counterintuitive, involving
a chain reaction that begins when an emotion (defined as
a change in body state in response to an external stimulus)
triggers a feeling (the representation of that change in
the brain as well as specific mental images). In other words,
feelings do not cause bodily symptoms but are caused by
them: We do not tremble because we feel afraid; we feel
afraid because we tremble." [Damasio's latest book is Looking
for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt,
2003).]
Marijuana alters embryonic brain, Nature Science Update,
March 25, 2003
Excerpt: "Infant rats exposed to cannabis compounds
in the womb have memory difficulties and are hyperactive,
a study has found. The compounds seem to alter the animals'
brain chemistry permanently. Similar changes may explain
why some children whose mothers smoked marijuana while pregnant
suffer attention problems later in life."
Post-traumatic stress disorder and
the incidence of nicotine, alcohol and other drug disorders
in persons who have experienced trauma, NPLinx Substance
Abuse Newsletter, March 21, 2003. Source: Breslau et al.
Archives of General Psychiatry. 2003;60: 289-294.
Excerpt: "The findings do not support the hypothesis
that exposure to traumatic events per se increases the risk
for substance use disorders. A modestly elevated risk for
nicotine dependence might be an exception. Post-traumatic
stress disorder [PTSD] might be a causal risk factor for
nicotine and drug use disorders or, alternatively, the co-occurrence
of PTSD and these disorders might be influenced by shared
risk factors other than traumatic exposure."
Workplace
weight-loss program helps diet novices, Reuters Health,
March 18, 2003 (story no longer online)
Summary: A study at the University of Glasgow suggests
that weight-loss programs at work may be effective. Researchers
recruited 122 men from a large Scottish oil refinery to
participate in a pilot program. None had tried losing weight
before, and their average waist size was 102 centimeters,
with an average body mass index (BMI) of "around 30."
The program included e-mail, in-person appointments every
two weeks, then a 12-week follow-up program via e-mail.
Of the 91 men who stayed the course, 9% lost 10% or more
of their original weight and 46% lost 5-10%. Only 10% lost
no weight. During the 12-week maintenance phase, 62% kept
off more than half of the weight they had lost.
Kids' emotional distress fuels self-doubt,
HealthScoutNews, March 11, 2003
Excerpt: "Children who suffer depression and
anxiety are likely to underestimate their abilities, says
a new study. And the effects are not fleeting: Even a year
after suffering emotional distress, children were likely
to view themselves and the world in a negative light, researchers
report in the March/April issue of Child Development.
Even if moods remained stable, the children's views of their
abilities continued to slide, the study found. The study
tracked 932 Illinois elementary schoolchildren — half
boys, half girls — for a year through three detailed
tests given six months apart. The tests were designed to
measure depression and anxiety levels as well the children's
views of themselves and the world and their perceptions
of their competency. Researchers compared the children's
perceptions of their academic competence with reality by
assessing grades in all subjects. Eva M. Pomerantz, the
study's lead author, says children who suffer emotional
distress typically blame themselves for failures, while
attributing success to factors beyond themselves."
Smoking,
tea drinking tied to urinary incontinence, Reuters Health,
March 6, 2003 (story no longer online)
Excerpt: "Both heavy smoking and regularly sipping
tea might help promote bladder-control problems in women,
researchers reported. Their study of nearly 28,000 Norwegian
women found that those who smoked more than 20 cigarettes
a day had a higher likelihood of urinary incontinence. Tea
drinkers showed a 'slightly higher' risk of the condition,
according to the report in the March issue of the British
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology."
Drink
and work — a potent cocktail, Hazards Monthly
News Update, March 2003
Excerpt: "People are drinking more now than
ever before, but too few employers have alcohol policies
in place or are dealing with the underlying causes including
stress and overwork, a TUC report has warned."
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Informatics,
telemedicine |
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Industry leaders join HIMSS in push for universal
adoption of electronic health records, HIMSS, April
14, 2003 press release
Excerpt: "More than 70 major IT companies and
health systems and 80 senior executives from organizations
across the country representing 38 states have signed a declaration
issued by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems
Society (HIMSS) calling for a summit and immediate action
supporting the universal implementation of electronic health
records (EHRs). In its declaration — Bridging the Chasm:
Realizing a Universal EHR — HIMSS pledges to convene
the public and private sectors in an effort to achieve improved
patient safety through EHRs."
Employer group to offer physician bonuses for IT use,
iHealthBeat (requires registration), April 10, 2003, based
on a Wall Street Journal article
Excerpt: "A group of large employers [including
General Electric, Ford Motors, Verizon Communications, United
Parcel Service and Procter & Gamble] will begin a pilot
project this week to pay physicians bonuses based on the
quality of care they provide for the companies’ employees.
As part of the program, doctors will receive [annual bonuses
of $55 per patient] for investing in information technology,
the Wall Street Journal reports."
Health Data Management's 2003 CIO survey,
Health Data Management, May 2003 issue
Excerpt: "The top three technologies that
survey participants expect to implement in the current and
next fiscal years are computerized physician order entry
systems, computer-based patient records and document management
systems."
14th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey: Trends in Healthcare Information
Management, Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society, April 2003
Summary: Reports from four segments: Vendor CEOs
and Healthcare CEOs, CIOs and CMOs
[Telemedicine] struggles to regain footing in Georgia,
The Macon Telegraph, April 6, 2003
Excerpt: "In just a few short years, Georgia
has gone from having one of the nation's leading telemedicine
programs to wondering how it has fallen so far behind....
'At its peak, our center had 2,000 consultations throughout
the state each year,' said Dr. Max Stachura, director of
The Medical College of Georgia's Center for Telehealth,
in Augusta. But as the... technology became more unwieldy
and expensive to operate, especially compared to the Internet,
more and more of the 35 participating health care institutions
dropped out of the project until there was [sic] none left."
JAMIA examines VA’s CPOE development, iHealthBeat
(requires registration), April 2, 2003
Excerpt: "A feature in the Journal of
the American Medical Informatics Association [JAMIA]
examines the development and implementation of a Department
of Veteran Affairs hospital’s modified computerized
physician order entry (CPOE) system for orthopedic imaging.
While physician order entry can be a useful component of
a hospital’s clinical information system, successfully
implementing CPOE means overcoming physicians’ reluctance
to adopt new technology, according to JAMIA. Almost all
VA medical centers have CPOE in place; in the first quarter
of FY 2002, clinicians entered 78% of all VA medication
orders. Despite high satisfaction rates with the system,
some VA physicians resented having to manually order imaging
requests, according to the article."
Pets may be first bioterrorism
alert, USA Today, March 30, 2003
Excerpt: "Our dogs and cats may come to the
rescue in the same way if the nation is attacked with slow-acting
biological or chemical agents. A national pet health surveillance
database is being set up by veterinarians at Purdue University
in Indiana to serve as an early warning of such an attack.
Pets are as likely as people to be affected by most chemical
or biological agents. But unlike people, many are likely
to be seen by veterinarians who are part of a centralized,
standardized medical system."
Software breaks data-transfer record, Nature Science
Update, March 27, 2003
Excerpt: "A new piece of software [called, appropriately,
FAST] more than trebles the speed at which information can
be sent over the Internet. It changes the way that computers
monitor and respond to online traffic conditions. Steven
Low, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
and his colleagues have sent data 3,500 times faster than
a typical broadband connection — at about 7 gigabytes
a minute. This is a new speed record for data transfer.
They designed the software with physicists in mind. But
it could help biologists, engineers and medics swap information.
And it might one day distribute online films to cinemas
or homes. At top speed, the new unique could send a DVD
movie in less than five seconds. 'We hope to have a version
ready for public release by the summer,' says Low. He plans
to make the software freely available for all to use and
adapt."
New telemedicine enters combat, Federal
Computer Week, March 21, 2003
Excerpt: "As the United States began its attack
on Iraq, military forces deployed new telemedicine tools
that were unavailable in the previous conflict in the Persian
Gulf.... The new technology is part of a strategy to treat
injured people outside a traditional hospital setting in
the first 'golden hour' when care may mean the difference
between life and death. It includes the concept of 'forward
surgery' to swiftly treat the wounded instead of just stabilizing
them and transporting them back to a carrier."
Google: Net hacker tool du jour, Wired
News, March 4, 2003
Excerpt: "...typing the phrase 'select a database
to view' — a common phrase in the FileMaker Pro database
interface — into Google recently yielded about 200
links, almost all of which led to FileMaker databases accessible
online. In a few cases, the databases contained sensitive
information.... Another search result pointed to a page
served by the Drexel University College of Medicine, which
linked to a database of 5,500 records of the medical college's
neurosurgical patients. The patient records included addresses,
telephone numbers and detailed write-ups of diseases and
treatments. Once Google pointed the visitor to the page,
the hacker merely needed to type in an identical user name
and password (in short, the name of the database) in order
to access the information."
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Medical
devices: Career crossover from high tech |
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University of Pennsylvania doctor operates with
help from his robotic friends, Daily Pennsylvanian
(U. of Pennsylvania), April 24, 2003
Summary: PR article describing, step by step, how
Dr. Joseph Woo, professor of surgery and director of the Minimally
Invasive and Robotic Cardiac Surgery Program at the University
of Pennsylvania, uses the da Vinci Surgical System robotic
aids during cardiac surgery.
If
you're now a tech industry refugee wondering how you can
cross over to healthcare, because everyone's telling you
that's a growth sector, there are a couple of likely bridges:
medical informatics (as opposed to bioinformatics, which
is more likely to require a bioscience background) and medical
devices. In this issue, we'll look at the latter and give
you a great list of links to explore further. (See link
below to full story that follows.)
Full
article: Career crossover from high tech to medtech
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Web
content, e-newsletters |
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The hippie days are gone, MarketingProfs.com,
April 1, 2003
Excerpt: "Do hippies and pioneers run your Web
site? Are the same people in charge today who got things going
in the mid-nineties? That's probably not a good idea. A very
interesting bunch of people were attracted to the Web in the
early days. They loved the lawless nature of the Web because
it allowed them the opportunity to experiment and express
themselves. These people tended to be techies and graphic
designers. What you need today are writers and editors. The
technical elements of a Web site are now largely solved. The
graphic design elements are relatively minor. The day-to-day
job of the average Web site is writing and editing."
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10
questions to answer before launching an e-mail newsletter |
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Deciding whether launching a newsletter is really a good idea
in your case is much like deciding whether to start a Web-based
company or any other kind. But some of the most obvious things
you'll need to research to make a wise decision are the most
difficult to determine. Do not hit Send until you've considered
these these 10 points covered in the full article:
- Purpose
- Audience
- Competition
- Marketing
- Content
- Frequency
- Production
- Process
- Budget
- Results
Full
article: 10 questions to answer before launching an e-mail
newsletter »
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Subscriber
survey next week |
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By early next week, I'll be sending you a survey, the first
all-subscriber survey since I started publishing Health
News Monitor in October of 2002 and probably the only
one this year. If you value this free newsletter at all, please
complete it, because I'll base several decisions on the results,
and those decisions will affect you, too.
It's
time for me to evaluate what's working, what's not, and
what might work better, from which topics to keep, drop
or add in the news digest citations and to cover in features,
to format and frequency. (FYI, what each subscriber enters
in the Interest Categories form guides what I include in
the newsletter, too, so please go to Update Your Profile
in the small-type link at the very bottom of this newsletter
if you haven't checked those boxes or want to change what
you checked. Also, just FYI, the plain text version is hopeless
with the publishing and list management service I use, but
the HTML version is attractive and easy to read.)
More
people subscribe every month, even though I do hardly any
promotion, and only one person has unsubscribed. The percentage
of subscribers who actually read the newsletter is high,
compared with other business newsletters. Yet it has led
to very little editing or writing work for me, which is
one of the main reasons I do this free newsletter. Therefore,
I also need a reality check on whether it's worth continuing.
I'll
make these decisions by Saturday, May 31, 2003, based
on your feedback. So please take just a few
minutes to promptly complete the subscriber survey I'll
be sending you. Thank you for your support so far and for
your valuable input.
—
Judith Broadhurst, editor and writer Publisher of Health
News Monitor
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