Grand Rounds is up at Edwin Leap. He asked submitters to address the question “why do we do it?” and the answers are truly heartfelt. Since health insurance is our niche, I tend to focus on health insurance related articles when I highlight entries for the Colorado Health Insurance Insider. But this week some posts that caught my eye had nothing to do with health insurance at all. I just liked them, and thought you might as well.

Anesthesioboist has a post about doctors prepping a child for surgery and singing Rogers and Hammerstein music to calm her. And reassuring an old man as they test his pacemaker. The softer side of medicine is all over this post, and it’s a heartwarming read.

Canadian Physician has a great post of an interview with Dr. Pierre Gosselin, discussing climate change and the effects it will have on health and health care. Will we be seeing more health problems (and thus be paying more for our health insurance) in the future because of the poor choices we’re making now in how we care for the environment around us?

Susan from Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good has a wonderful post about teaching med students the value of really listening and interacting with their patients. Good stuff, and it’s actually a valuable lesson for pretty much any profession, not just medicine. Communication and empathy will get you a long way. For more on how listening – even when what is being said sounds improbable – is an important skill, check out the Cockroach Catcher’s post about a talking yucca and a stowaway family of tarantulas.

The Covert Rationing Blog has a thought-provoking article about whether high-cost drugs like Avastin and Nexavar are worth it, when they only extend life expectancies by a small margin. Read the comments too, as there are some interesting points raised in the discussion.

The Colorado Health Insurance Insider post about electronic transmittal of prescriptions was included in the Grand Rounds – thanks Dr. Leap!