Pope Francis passed away this morning at the age of 88. Just weeks ago, he had spent 38 days hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for what was described as “double pneumonia,” before returning to his Vatican apartment to recover. H…
Category: Public Health & Policy
The surprising reason doctors might turn to unions
A few months ago, the longshoremen’s union shut down 14 ports along the East and Gulf Coasts. This strike of dockworkers was costing the American economy up to $5 billion per day. The strike lasted 3 days, and there was an agreement to suspend th…
Why vaccine access still fails America’s most vulnerable groups
The health, judicial, and socioeconomic disparities among ethnic minorities are pervasive, and vaccination rates are key among them. The inequities among marginalized groups are largely driven by social determinants of health, education, and access to …
How to build a culture where physicians feel valued [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Health care executive Jeffry A. Peters discusses his article “Ending physicians’ addiction to unhappiness,” focusing on the systemic factors fueling wide…
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…
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…
C. Everett Koop meets the giants of pediatric surgery: Ladd and Gross
An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General. In spring of 1946 the young Koop was sent to Boston for several months to spend time with the giants of the nascent field of pediatric surgery, William E. Ladd (1880–1967), and his traine…
