Author's posts
Making Neighborhood-Disadvantage Metrics Accessible — The Neighborhood Atlas
Health disparities are a major problem in the United States: many conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Few inter…
Personhood and the Three Branches of Government
In the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that if the notion of fetal personhood were established, the argument for women’s choice would collapse, “for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fo…
Accreditation of Clinical Research Sites — Moving Forward
Accreditation is used in many fields, including education, travel, construction, and health care. When implemented correctly, it improves quality, performance, and safety, while signaling to the public that an accredited entity is committed to an agree…
Firearm Injuries and Violence Prevention — The Potential Power of a Surgeon General’s Report
In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, President Barack Obama suggested that the relationship between firearm ownership and gun injuries might be as strong as the connection between cig…
Housing Immigrant Children — The Inhumanity of Constant Illumination
On the Wednesday before the summer solstice in the United States, President Donald Trump ended his administration’s policy of forced separation of immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border — a practice characterized by the preside…
The Suffering of Children
Every pediatrician has his or her own tips for putting young patients at ease in the exam room. Mine include referring to even the tiniest Spanish-speaking patients as usted rather than tú, as a sign of respect, and sitting at or below their level to a…
Growing Ranks of Advanced Practice Clinicians — Implications for the Physician Workforce
Throughout the history of modern American medicine, physicians have made up the vast majority of professionals who diagnose, treat, and prescribe medication to patients. Although demand for medical services has increased markedly over the years (and is…
Informed Consent and the Role of the Treating Physician
In the century since Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo famously declared that “[e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body,” informed consent has become a central feature of American medical…
Nurse-Led Communication in the Intensive Care Unit
We examine him each day — the elderly patient, intubated, sedated, with a bewildered wife at his bedside. We should sit down with his wife before we ask her to make hard decisions about her husband’s care, but the unit is so busy that we find ourselves…
The Graduate Nurse Education Demonstration — Implications for Medicare Policy
Despite decades of public and private investment, the United States continues to have a shortage of primary care capacity. Only 2699 graduating U.S. medical students — about 17% of graduates from allopathic and osteopathic schools — matched with primar…
