The first time I saw a preceptor use the American College of Cardiology’s atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (mercifully, ASCVD) risk calculator, I was hooked. As a first-year medical student, data nerd, and aspiring primary care provider, I …
Category: Policy
Banning Healthcare Facility Fees Is Bad News For Colorado
Banning facility fees may seem like a straightforward way to reduce patients’ medical bills. But it will do so by killing off clinics—and thereby curtailing patient access to care.
Medicine and history: a seemingly unlikely but necessary duo in understanding COVID-19 disparities
“Hispanic community makes up more than half of coronavirus cases in Southwest Michigan county” was the headline in the newspaper that caught my eye in August 2020 – that infamous year that the nation went into lockdown to prevent the spread…
When cute is actually harmful: It’s time to end the in-store tricks that hurt our kids’ health
In a grocery store recently, a friend’s young child gave a big hug to a brightly colored, meter-high plastic cartoon mascot for a well-known candy brand standing at the end of an aisle surrounded by many bags of the candy on sale. “Aww, tha…
Why retail giants will revolutionize American health care
In health care, as in life, people devote a lot of time and attention to the way things should be. They’d be better off focusing on what actually could be. As an example, 57% to 70% of American voters believe our nation “should” adopt…
Raising reimbursements: the Medicaid imperative
One early evening in June, we sat in the second row of a Health Sciences Building classroom with 79 other students enrolled in the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP). We were excited to hear a guest lecture from a program alumnus, a cl…
Food is medicine: Why doctors care about the Farm Bill
As the spring planting season approaches, seven farmers from my home state of Illinois traveled to Washington, DC to participate in the “Farmers for Climate Action” rally. Farmers sought meetings with lawmakers, including Illinois Sen. Dick…
Physicians take a stand against anti-LGBT laws: a call to action
In the 1970s, my brother and I were raised as twins. He’s a year older than me, but we wore matching denim outfits, had thick side-parted hair, and worshiped The Beatles. Near identical though we were, only one of us was queer. And America was ly…
Don’t Let Progressives Assign A Dollar Value To Human Life
QALYs are a pseudoscientific and inhumane way to make decisions about medical treatment. In countries where regulators rely on these metrics to determine patient access to drugs, they almost exclusively lead to the denial of life-saving treatments.
Laboratories Are Still Performing Gain-Of-Function Research On Viruses More Dangerous Than Covid-19
Shockingly, laboratories today are working to make viruses that are even more deadly than Covid-19. Little is being done to stop them. Why?
