Category: Public Health & Policy

The national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health offers hope

The announcement of the Biden-Harris Administration’s national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health is a critical step toward building a healthier nation. For the first time in half a century, the administration announced more than $8 million in p…

Gun violence during residency: Run. Hide. Fight.

I no longer react to the chiming from my phone when a push notification alerts me of another mass shooting. I have become numb to such alarms. Perhaps it is the increasing frequency of these alerts or a feeling of inevitability, made even starker by my…

The middleman mentality is killing American medicine

Between producers and consumers, you’ll find a cadre of professionals who broker deals, facilitate transactions, and move goods and services along. They’re called “middlemen,” and they thrive in virtually every industry — from r…

Practicing great medicine got a lot simpler. It’s health care that’s getting in the way.

We pay more than any other nation for health care, yet we have suffered the single biggest decline in life expectancy since WWII. Something went wrong. At a time of record inflation and rising taxes, isn’t it time we stopped to ask where the mone…

Next of kin in the medical decision making process

Four years ago, as chairman of the hospital ethics committee, I was asked to convene an emergency meeting brought by a distraught family as medical decisions had to be made for their ill loved one. The hospital, HMO lawyers, the family, three adult chi…

My motherland is burning, but patient care can’t wait

My relationship with my cultural identity has always been a complicated one. As many children of immigrants can relate, I often felt disconnected from my parents’ country of origin in an attempt to assimilate to American life. I was born in Manha…

What physicians can do in Ukraine [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “You can talk about Ukraine and the courage of the Ukrainian people as you talk to colleagues and patients and as you talk to family and friends in your community. The U.S. may be div…

America is a magnet for global STEM talent

This essay is inspired in part by my recent encounter with a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For starters, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — or NASA for short — is an agency of the U.S. government responsibl…

I went to Ukraine to help. Here’s what you can do.

I went to Poland and Ukraine in April and May of 2022, hoping to support the Ukrainian people in their defense of their country and democracy itself. Vladimir Putin had put the world in a vise. “Let me do what I want, or you will risk nuclear war…

What does it mean to truly be an ally?

The University of Utah Physician Assistant Students Supporting Equity and Diversity (PASSED) group believes it’s important to discuss what it truly means to be an ally. This term has recently become more popular; however, it seems that “all…