Today, I’m sharing 3 sites that I hope will stimulate your thinking. Of course, all are related to living with health challenges, though none are specific to career. But doesn’t your ability to keep working tie directly into your efforts to manage difficult health?
Choosing Wisely, Massachusetts encourages physicians and patients to discuss medical tests and procedures that may be unnecessary, and in some instances cause harm. Part of the national Choosing Wisely Campaign, sponsored by ABIM Foundation, this site is produced by Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (full disclosure: I chair MHQP Consumer Health Council and sit on the Board of Directors). This is useful wherever you live within the U.S. I think that this has tremendous potential for changing the way we think, talk and ask for our healthcare. Consider this: How much work time have you lost on tests or procedures that yield no new action or worse, are harmful? Can you imagine what might change if patients and care providers understood why and how to have these conversations?
‘Living with an Invisible Illness’ was written by a student and published in The Michigan Daily. It describes her efforts to get a college education while living with that insidious thing we refer to as invisible illness. The writer describes the woefully inadequate services that are provided, her concerns and her frustration. Reading this is a glimpse into the lack of support and systems that are available — and this at a truly great school (my daughter, niece and nephew are alums!) . FYI — I developed my Kickstart Your Career Program for just this reason. College career advisory programs are unprepared for the challenges facing those who live with unpredictable health problems. If you know a young person in this situation, send them to my website.
A former client sent me “Maybe It Makes Us Worse”, suggesting I might want to comment or write about it. I’m doing both. Published in the Belmont Patch Slice of Life column, the pieces refutes the phrase, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” (Friedrich Nietzsche). The writer says that she has always hated this expression (ditto here). She describes two near death experiences that did not make her stronger. But the major point of the article refers to people who live with chronic illness, something that rarely kills but, she believes, doesn’t make us stronger, either. “These people are often exhausted, acquiescent, discouraged, frustrated. But I know of no one who would claim that their chronic illness has made them significantly stronger.” Do you think living with illness has depleted or toughened you?