Franklin House Discusses Writing
Interview With a Co-Author of The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle
Here is an interview with Dr. Franklin House, MD, in which he talks about diabetes mellitus and provides advice for health writers.
Franklin House, MD, is involved with the Lifestyle Center of America in Sulphur, Oklahoma, and Sedona, Arizona, where diabetic patients can manage diabetes through lifestyle modifications. He has also co-written a book, The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle.
In an exclusive interview with Suite101, Dr. House talks about diabetes and his advice for health writers. He also discusses diabetes, the Lifestyle Center of America, and writing his book, The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle, in Franklin House Discusses His Book.
Anthony Lee: Regarding the prevalence and current trends of type 2 diabetes mellitus, where do you see them in the next ten years?
Franklin House: Type 2 diabetes mellitus represents a tsunami-like force sweeping across America’s landscape with devastating effects to our entire culture. Currently, about one in every sixteen Americans has diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control predicts that children now in grade school will develop diabetes as adults in a ratio of one to three. Hispanic, African, Native, and Pacific Island Americans will demonstrate an even more crippling reality. In that demographic, every other adult is expected to be diabetic type 2. Futurist economists such as Paul Zane Pilzer predict that, in the not too distant future, medical care will become economically unsustainable.
Anthony Lee: Do you have any other thoughts?
Franklin House: The average American consumer is confused by all the conflicting health and wellness information with which he is constantly bombarded. Part of the confusion and, frankly, “anger” is directed at the medical healthcare industry. Helping the consumer recognize the difference between acute disease care and chronic disease care would, I think, help dissipate some confusion and anger. As an acute healthcare provider I did not recognize the distinction myself until my patient, Mrs. Crawford (a pseudonym) whom I had cared for during seven years finally confronted me with a penetrating question. Her chart reflected five major diagnoses including type 2 diabetes, heart failure, obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), and a thyroid condition. In the process of explaining to her the need for including an additional prescription, Mrs. Crawford plaintively blurted out, “Dr. House, I can’t afford another prescription. Just look at this bagful that cost me several hundred dollars each month. Isn’t there something you could tell me to do that would make a difference?”
My epiphany contained several elements;
- Do? That was a new twist. I knew how to diagnose and prescribe. “To do” was a challenge I was only partially prepared to answer.
- What could I possibly teach her to do in one office visit?
- Here, I faced a motivated patient willing “to do” whatever it took to make a difference in her condition.
- Most of my patients expect a prescription: “I just want to feel better, Doc." In twelve years of practice, I could not remember another patient like Mrs. Crawford who wanted to do something to manage her own health.
Within six months after an hour’s instruction, Mrs. Crawford was at her ideal body weight, was off all medications except her thyroid replacement hormone, and her chart reflected only the diagnosis I had made seven years earlier: hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid). Diabetes was undiagnosable as were the other chronic conditions. It was at this point that I recognized that though I was proficient in delivering acute health care, I was deficient in my ability to do the same for folks with chronic diseases. They could do more for themselves with good education and quality coaching than I could ever achieve with my stethoscope and a prescription pad.
Anthony Lee: What advice do you have for freelance health writers looking to tell unpopular stories?
Franklin House: I’m a thoughtful person and a very experienced observer, so my first advice to a health writer is that, too often, we as freelance writers and wellness writers and speakers don’t get our science straight. In order to get any credibility in the world, we need to get our science straight. Also, when it comes to delivering science in the healthcare model, some assumptions made by the healthcare establishment are wrong. So we need to be aware of what assumptions are motivating our writing.
The third thing is that it is very distracting for a person who writes about health and wellness and scientific things if he has something to sell. Avoid being a peddler. What you’re trying to peddle is ideas and science, don’t put a product to it, because the minute you do, your credibility goes down.
My fourth tidbit of advice is be passionate. If your science is valid and your writing is good and your message is passionate, you may offend a bunch of people, but there will also be a group that listens. And once this happens, there will eventually be a move in that direction. There is a tipping point in society where we have to achieve this critical mass before we tip. So write with passion and just be sure you’ve got your science straight.
(Dr. House discusses diabetes, the Lifestyle Center of America, and writing his book in Franklin House Discusses His Book.)
