“As a doctor, it is pretty humbling to reflect on the fairly minimal impact our health care system has on individuals’ overall health. One study I find particularly intriguing shows that socioeconomic factors (e.g., education and income), and phy…
Category: Public Health & Policy
A physician was bullied and fired by the bully
I don’t think I became a whole person until my mid-30s. When you spend the majority of your life in school, training, and building a practice, everything else goes on hold, or autopilot. There are very few things that I made conscious decisions a…
Those with the power to reform our system have little incentive to act
It is no surprise that burnout is surging along with this latest pandemic wave. Exhaustion—both physical and moral—is the ashen heart of burnout. Even as the flood of patients recedes in some areas, health care operations are hardly back to normal as m…
Health care and the Latinx experience [PODCAST]
“Knowing that an important number of Latinx are not yet fully vaccinated and understanding the health care gaps and social disparities that affect this group, it is reasonable to assume that the Latinx community will be disproportionately affecte…
5 ways that health IT can improve health equity
On March 10, I had the distinct privilege of presenting to the ONC Health IT Advisory Committee at their meeting titled “Health Equity by Design.” The presentation highlighted five areas of focus for health IT in reducing health disparities…
Family medicine and the fight for the soul of health care [PODCAST]
“Overall, the health system in the United States is still not tilting its axes in favor of either primary care or family doctor. What is worse, family doctors as a collective are more balkanized and less cohesive than ever. There is a sense among…
Kids are not OK: Health care is failing them [PODCAST]
“Our children are not OK. Our pediatricians are not OK. Please, let us not further ignore and jeopardize the future health of our society. Pediatrics needs a transformational change to direct primary care and other models that transition from tra…
Coding for social determinants of health and unmet social needs
In health care circles these days, you hear about the social determinants of health (SDOH) almost as often as you hear: “You’re on mute!” SDOH are the conditions in the places where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, a…
Remove race from clinical guidelines
The theme for the 2022 Black History Month was “Black Health and Wellness.” To improve Black health and wellness, the scientific community needs to take the first step by removing the category of race in clinical guidelines where it can do more harm th…
Stop the ABMS monopoly
Currently, there are three multi-specialty certifying bodies recognized within our health care system. The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), and the American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS)….
