Welcome to the inaugural edition of Health Tips and News by Johnny Wyatt. This will be a monthly column which will provide readers with timely health tips and news stories pertinent to GLBT healthcare issues as well as health and healthcare in general.
In this first column I wanted to take a moment and tell you a little about myself and my interest in providing this service to Out & About readers. First off, let me share a little of my background.
I am a Tennessee native and have lived in this area my entire life. I’m a Registered Nurse with a background in critical care nursing, and I am a board certified Adult Nurse Practitioner. I have an undergraduate degree in nursing from Aquinas College and a master’s degree in nursing from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
Currently, I’m working on my doctorate in nursing at the University of Tennessee with a focus on chronic disease management. My current practice is in adult primary care and diabetes management and my research focus in my doctoral program is in the use of Motivational Interviewing to increase medication adherence in adults with chronic diseases. Other interests are of course GLBT healthcare as well as mental health care in at risk populations and travel health.
Why the need for this new column? Healthcare has continued to advance at an exponential pace and with these advances come influxes of huge amounts of information. The Internet has made access to this information easy to obtain, but how do we know which information is accurate and which is not?
It’s my hope that I can cut through some of the misinformation that surfaces when searching the Web for useful information and provide concise and accurate information in a succinct form that is easy to read and easy to understand. I also hope to provide resources for you to access on the Internet that are peer reviewed and trustworthy sources of healthcare information, so you can get more detailed information than provided in this column.
Also, it’s my hope this column can be used to share not only my take on hot topics in healthcare but also to answer some of your questions regarding your health or healthcare in general. The advice given in this column should never be a replacement for a consultation with your own primary care provider nor can all information be generalized to apply to every individual. We are all unique and healthcare is not a one size fits all entity. In general I will try and provide information that is as broad as possible so that it is applicable to as many people as is practical.
A few of the topics I’m currently working on for future stories include: adult vaccinations recommended for the GLBT community, healthy travel tips, helpful criteria for choosing a primary care provider, ways to reduce stress and anxiety, as well as information about the diabetes epidemic and what to ask your healthcare provider to see if you’re at risk for developing diabetes.
It would be very helpful to me in getting this column off the ground if you could e-mail me suggestions and or questions about topics that I could write about in the future. I may not be able to cover every question or suggestion but if I notice several of you asking about similar topics this will help me choose which topics are the most interesting to you.
You can e-mail me at editor@outvoices.us.
Thanks and I look forward to you reading my column in the future.