Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail

Joining the list of around 3,500 people who have made the impressive hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, is Ian Crombie or “DirtWolf,” per his trail name. Ian made the 2,654 mile trek from Mexico to the Canadian border from April 2014 to September 2014.

The Pacific Crest Trail makes up what is called the Triple Crown of Hiking, the informal name for three long distance hiking trails: The Pacific Crest (2,654 miles), the Appalachian Trail (2,184 miles), and the Continental Divide Trail (3,100 miles).

Asked why he took on this months long journey in which he did face rather risky situations, such as falling into and almost being dragged away by an icy river, Crombie said that he didn’t want to live always talking about things he wanted to do but never actually doing anything.

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail will be an exciting thing to attempt, and certainly something to suggest to the family. It is, however, risky although for some people it is a challenge to prove to themselves that they can achieve anything. Hiking proves what people can achieve when they treat the world around them with respect.

This is why the Pacific Crest Trail Association honors those that complete the 2,600 mile trek with their “2,600 miler” list. They also offer hikers a medal or certificate of completion to commemorate their trek.

So what are some necessary items to complete this trail?

Here is some advice gleaned from Crombie:

1. To not lose your sunglasses, useful on those sunny stretches of trail, croakies are an investment. Those are the bands that hold your glasses to the back of your head or around your neck.

2. Lightweight, fast drying trail running shoes…and be sure to be ready to buy more than 1 pair. Crombie went through six pairs of shoes in his 5 month hike. He claims he could average about 500 miles per pair.

3. Calorie dense snack bars and Snickers bars. You will sweat a lot and lose a lot of weight on a 2,600 mile hike. Hikers he met up with, according to Crombie, would try to eat as much as they could whenever they got to towns and visited convenience stores.

4. A good backpack to carry all the necessary items, especially good. It will be heavy and that’s just a part of the workout. When Crombie started his trip, he weighed 190 pounds and lost over 20 pounds overall after averaging twenty five miles per day carrying 30-40 pounds on his back.

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3 Innovations in Health Care

There are several innovations in the world of healthcare that have extended our life expectancy and
made every day life and medicine much easier and efficient. However, there are also certain innovations that are largely unseen by the average citizen and sometimes not even by fellow medical professionals. These uncredited innovations are making small yet important improvements to everyday medicine. Here are 3 such improvements to the world of medicine:

1. Innovations in cardiac care

Thanks to improvements to how patients are diagnosed and treated for coronary heart disease, death rates have dropped 38% within the last decade. These improvements were largely quiet, incremental and had no spotlight shined on them but a 38% drop in 10 years is an amazing feat.

Hospitals as well as doctors had begun implementing methods that streamlined the process of diagnosing and treating heart disease. EKGs, for example, can now be performed on location by a paramedic when they reach a patient and transmit the data to the ER. Prior to this, an EKG could only be performed after the ambulance arrived at the ER but it is well known that timely response and treatment is critical.

On the more administrative side of things, lawyers have also streamlined the document and consent form process.

2. Leveraging technology and data to improve kidney transplant matching

This innovation came from the field of Economics, where Stanford professor of economics, Al Roth, worked on “matching markets.” This was cleverly adapted to matching donors and recipients of kidneys, sometimes creating a large and intricate web of donation and receipt of these vital organs.

For example, if a family member needs a kidney transplant and you wish to donate but aren’t a match, the hospitals can find someone in need of a kidney with whom you are a match while finding a match for your family member. This way, both people who intended to donate a kidney, donated a kidney and helped two people who desperately needed a donation. 

Sometimes this exchange gets a lot more intricate and has saved many lives.

3. Rise in popularity of “Direct Pay” to Physicians

This is more of a trend than a physical innovation but direct pay physicians are gaining popularity around the country. What this entails is the follow: Patients pay a flat fee monthly to their physician and that gives them unlimited access to them. This could be by phone or email, and they can have routine services like check ups, treatments for cuts and burns, infections, shots, and other exams. Since every American is required to have some level of health insurance under law, and since the monthly fee tends to be very affordable, patients can save money on medical insurance by only getting services that cover surgeries and hospital stays.

Through direct pay, physicians can spend more time with a patient. With normal medical insurance, doctors typical spend no more than 15 minutes with a patient.

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Kitra Cahana leads this Ted Talk giving us a glimpse into life on the road.