During Trump’s first address to Congress, he continued to promise economic reform. In the wake of the administration’s brazen attempts to cut costs, we have watched in awe as combat veterans are fired from the VA, lifelong civil servants ar…
Category: Policy
The school cafeteria could save American medicine
I grew up in Pickens, South Carolina—a small, poor Appalachian town burdened by health struggles. In school, I saw food insecurity long before I had the vocabulary for it. Classmates ate honey buns and chips for breakfast, and lunch trays held processe…
Native communities deserve better: the truth about Pine Ridge health care
Driving through the barren lands of South Dakota after visiting the Badlands, I noticed a sign denoting I was entering the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. As a medical student at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (GCSOM) in Scranton, PA, I rarel…
Third-party litigation funding threatens access to health care
Verdicts in excess of $10 million, or even $25 million, are no longer rare occurrences in medical malpractice litigation. Though most of these awards are handed down by empathetic juries concerned for an injured plaintiff, 40 percent of the award or mo…
How fake news about transgender mice is hurting real patients
Poisoned puppies, rats on cocaine, transgender mice: these might sound like the beginning of a bizarre joke, but they’re at the center of growing political attacks on medical and scientific research. Senator Ted Cruz calls it the “woke nons…
What happened to real care in health care?
Every time I turn on the television, there’s another commercial for a new drug treating a condition I’ve never even heard of. It’s constant. And honestly, it’s exhausting. I can’t help but wonder: What happened to real car…
C. Everett Koop takes the lead, seeking specialty recognition
An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General. “I was the salesman for pediatric surgery. I have the knack of talking to an audience and convincing [them] about what I’m saying is true.” – CEK The early 1950s w…
Human trafficking isn’t what you think: Why education is key to stopping it
The recent focus on the Canada-U.S. border has led to frequent confusion between human smuggling and human trafficking. Smuggling involves people moving across international borders. In most cases, irregular migrants who are smuggled into the country c…
How trade wars could destroy the U.S. health care system
The term “core competency” was coined by management experts C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel in their influential 1990 article titled “The core competence of the corporation,” published in the Harvard Business Review. Prahalad and H…
Academic medical centers under threat: the impact of funding cuts
A familiar ding echoes from blue scrub pants. My conditioned frontal cortex reflexively shoots my hand to the back pocket. Fingers encircle a black smartphone. A ricochet of notification vibration still tickles my right buttock. Several semi-autonomous…
