“What form the incoming winter will take depends on the location and status of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each city must find a method that will provide the most relief and assistance for their homeless population. Analyzing the results of the measur…
Category: Public Health & Policy
Confronting the financial barriers to health care has to be a centerpiece of any COVID-19 strategy
The initial wave of vaccinations is underway, but let’s not forget that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the epidemic of precarious access to health care, an issue that the U.S. uniquely faces in the developed world. In 2018, a survey found that 4…
How President Biden’s quest for a public option mirrors LBJ’s passage of Medicare and Medicaid
The health care circumstances of President Biden’s ascent to the Oval Office are unprecedented. He is inheriting responsibility for the American response to a pandemic that has taken more than 400,000 American lives and will take office just months aft…
Lessons learned from a combat doctor in Iraq [PODCAST]
“My own dream-induced pain started at the same time this child was mowed down. Then and there is when and where my faith in God died because God, the higher power, had allowed this unspeakable nightmare to happen. My hope for the future evaporate…
How health care organizations can tackle racism in patient care [PODCAST]
“The new American Medical Association policy recognizing racism as a public health threat and providing an anti-racist approach to equitable care will have no effectiveness unless health care organizations get their own houses in order and active…
Medicine in the shadow of the Confederacy
To get to my primary care clinic in Richmond, VA, my patients and I must walk past the Confederacy’s White House. Our emergency room sits in its shadow. Each day, I walk past the three-story white building surrounded by my hospital on three sides…
Medicine in the shadow of the Confederacy
To get to my primary care clinic in Richmond, VA, my patients and I must walk past the Confederacy’s White House. Our emergency room sits in its shadow. Each day, I walk past the three-story white building surrounded by my hospital on three sides…
There’s a doctor in the house, and maybe also a physician: a view from osteopathic medicine
The Wall Street Journal’s decision to publish an attack on Dr. Jill Biden’s right to be called “doctor” has appropriately unleashed a firestorm. According to Joseph Epstein, the editorial’s author, Biden should drop the title because she isn’t what peo…
As both patients and physicians, women face discrimination
My first clinical rotation as a third-year medical student was in orthopedics. I remember the excitement of being scrubbed into the OR, with the gloried task of suctioning while the fellows did the real work. About 30 minutes into the surgery, when thi…
A real-life example of irrational health care spending
This week at work, I had a patient in the hospital who had been through a pretty challenging illness, and he was going to have to be discharged to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) to rehab for a few weeks. Sadly, SNFs in my area do not currently allow …
