Dr. Jay Parkinson reminds me of my behavioural Medicine professor this summer. My prof is the picture of health, muscular, lean, and enthusiastic about preventative health care. His classes really challenge me to think creatively about our nation’s health care system. I am currently working on a presentation about the problems associated with health care costs. As I am researching the existing literature, I cam across Dr. Jay, who is all about prevention and helping improve people’s health from a biopsychosocial perspective and blogs are The Future Well.
Check out Dr. Jay’s blog post, “Most health solutions aren’t medical, they’re social,” here. I love his message and it echos research I’ve read about the effects of your social circle on your health. If your friends are sedentary, pizza-eating gamers, you will likely eat a fair share of pizza, game and not move much. If you start hanging out with those that are more active and eat healthier, teach you to cook or a new hobby like hiking or human origami (I just made that one up but it sounds fun doesn’t it!), you are more likely to adopt healthier behaviors. And if you inspire your pizza eating friends to try a hacky sack game or two with you on a regular basis, you may be able to keep your friends and improve your health.
Who is Dr. Jay?
Dr. Jay Parkinson, MD, MPH
(From his blog site)
Instead of pills and scalpels, Dr. Jay Parkinson uses creative design to improve health. He’s been called “The Doctor of the Future” and one of the “Top Ten Most Creative People in Healthcare” by Fast Company. Esquire Magazine included him in 2009’s “Best and Brightest: Radicals and Rebels Who Are Changing the World” issue.
Jay is a pediatrician and preventive medicine specialist with a masters in public health from Johns Hopkins. After completing residency, he started a practice for his neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in September 2007. People would visit his website; see his Google calendar; choose a time and input their symptoms; his iPhone would alert him; he’d make a house call; they’d pay him via Paypal; and he’d follow up by email, IM, videochat, or in person. This concept led to Jay co-founding Hello Health, a novel way of experiencing healthcare via a Facebook-like platform that uses technology — including email, instant messaging, and video chat — to restore the traditional doctor-patient relationship but updated for today’s lifestyle.
He’s been called “The Doctor of the Future” and one of the “Top Ten Most Creative People in Healthcare” by Fast Company. Esquire Magazine included him in 2009′s “Best and Brightest: Radicals and Rebels Who Are Changing the World” issue. He’s been featured in GOOD Magazine, CNN, Newsweek, and Health Affairs. The leading trade publication for hospital and system executives, Hospitals and Health Networks, dedicated a cover article to Jay entitled, Your Future Chief of Staff? Jay also appears in Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin.
Selected Writings of Dr. Jay
BusinessWeek: How to Redesign Healthcare
Design Observer: Road to Wellville. How to redesign a broken healthcare system.
GOOD Magazine: Fixing What Ails the Sickness Industry.
Working Well Resources' Blog 