I started sharing my journey through medicine on Instagram about four years ago after I failed the musculoskeletal block during my first year of medical school. I felt alone in my struggles and didn’t want anyone else to feel that way. So I start…
Category: Public Health & Policy
Medicare for all: a campaign promise, catchy bumper sticker, or viable program?
With the 2020 election cycle already moving into high gear, we are hearing a lot about Medicare for all. But is it a serious campaign promise, a catchy bumper sticker or a viable national program? Supporters suggest it will be a panacea for our nation’…
A framework to understand universal health care
One of the most popular topics in health care is the idea of universal health care coverage. You know the soundbites: “Medicare for all.” “Single-payer system.” While universal coverage sounds desirable to many, some factors must be considered. In this…
Want to find the best doctor? Don’t rely on price tags.
Say you want to know which baseball players provide the most value for the big dollars they’re being paid. A Google search quickly yields analytics. But suppose your primary care physician just diagnosed you with cancer. What will a search for a “high …
The fallacy of patient-centered care
I often wonder what it was like before patient-centered care became a mainstream catchphrase. Was there a poor relationship between the patient and physician in the outpatient setting? Were hospitalized patients’ feelings, desires, goals, and therapy o…
The rent is too high in health care
Jimmy McMillan might have been right. Mr. McMillan ran for mayor of New York City as the founder and candidate of the “Rent Is Too Damn High” Party. And while he was talking about real estate rent, he might have made a similar complaint about health ca…
Social isolation is a health risk
More than two-thirds of Americans use social media, and 90 percent of adults in the U.S. have a cell phone. With these tools surrounding us, we must be more connected with one another than ever before. Right? It doesn’t feel like we are. At least, the …
For future physician-activists: This is our lane
Rudolf Virchow, a pioneering physician of the 1800s, once wrote that “politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale”. Over a century later, this nexus is as apparent as ever, and many doctors engage as practitioners of both. Twitter erupted this pa…
Medicare for all and the problem of health care on demand
The evolving politics of single-payer health care conflate the concepts of universal coverage, health care on demand and free health care. To the indiscriminate progressive mind, all three are part of the holy grail. The fly in the ointment is that hig…
Physicians are now lab rats
Pay for performance (P4P) is all the rage in health care. Big Pharma led the way, and the popular press would have you believe that one can “incentivize” physicians and their clinical colleagues with as little as a sandwich and a bag of chips. Corporat…
