Earlier this year, Houston Methodist gave its 26,000 hospital employees an ultimatum: Get vaccinated or get a new job. It was one of the nation’s first vaccine mandates. And it was a big, multilayered risk: with legal, financial and ethical consequence…
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 physical e…
“Some may say that we all come into this world with our own luck, and if we end up having to endure a disability, then other people in society should not be held financially responsible. To that I say, do we not have a moral imperative to ensure …
During these solemn high holy days of repentance and reckoning, millions of Jews around the world beseech God to stop COVID-19 from spreading and ending lives. Although it can be soothing and reassuring to believe that the universe is governed by a su…
As Delta numbers soar, I yearn for an escape from the daily discussions about why you should get vaccinated and why a mask is necessary, an escape from the daily worry that our six-year-old asthmatic son’s cough is just that, and not more, and when can…
As third-year medical students, we recently stepped out of the classroom and onto the wards, eager to provide the quality care we had been working towards for the better part of the last decade. We were, however, quickly met with a stark reminder of ho…
I’ve always had a strong sense of justice. I think that’s what attracted me most to superheroes as a child. Growing up, my favorite by far was Spider-Man. Many people think it’s because of his superpowers, but for me, it was always ab…
Despite the bright pink walls of its exterior, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility stands inconspicuously, set back along a stretch of a frequently traveled road. We had come to meet Carla (identifying information changed), a detaine…
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to uphold its current Communist government. Opposed to the foreign invasion of their country, many rebel groups, collectively known as the Mujahideen, rose up in arms to fight the Soviets. Since it was the …
“Our country is facing a voting crisis with multiple layers: chronically low overall voter participation, even lower voter participation among physicians and — to add insult to injury — an increasing number of laws that make voting more difficult…
