<span itemprop="author">Hayward Zwerling, MD

Author's posts

It is time to make the unvaccinated pay their fair share

Massachusetts is again experiencing a COVID-19 surge and our hospitals are overwhelmed, mostly with unvaccinated patients. As a practicing physician who takes care of many high-risk diabetic patients, I ask all my patients about their COVID-19 vaccinat…

Why patients refuse the COVID-19 vaccination

The U.S. is progressively falling behind other countries when rated on the percent of the population that is vaccinated against COVID-19. I ask all my patients if they are vaccinated against COVID-19 and estimate that 80 percent are vaccinated. The unv…

A physician’s exam room should be educational and inviting

Today’s health care system has become so standardized that if a person in a medical office were instantly and magically transported to a medical office in another city, the person would instantly recognize that they were still in a medical office. Our …

Talking politics in the exam room [PODCAST]

“The medical profession now understands that social determinants of health are probably the most important driver of a patient’s overall health, and these determinants are largely the result of political decisions. Clearly, we have a professional…

Talking politics in the exam room

I walked into my exam room to see a patient I first met two decades ago. His medical problems included poorly controlled diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and a substance abuse disorder. Over the years, our health care system has served him well …