Category: Public Health & Policy

No mass shooting is “worse” than another mass shooting

It is a macabre fact. The easing of COVID shutdowns has brought back mass shootings in the U.S. With almost no packed schools, movie theaters, malls, airports, and fewer packed workplaces during the last year, mass shootings did not lead the news. Now …

The rise and fall of Hahnemann University Hospital

In March, thousands of medical students received their residency match results. For most specialties, match rates for graduating U.S. MD seniors have typically remained above 90 percent. This almost certain job security is what allows most medical stud…

Racism and health: the life expectancy gap

Since the national election of 2020, racism at the polls has become a hot topic that Democrats hope soon to remedy with the election reform bill, H.R.1. I imagine many health care practitioners are wondering what is wrong with so many of our political …

Words matter: Definitions ground us in our profession and in our world [PODCAST]

“Definitions ground us in our profession and in our world. Definitions matter because they help us pause, give our body a moment to settle, and our breath time to move in and out. Our racist actions, inactions, and comments are invasive throughou…

Is it time to consider social determinants of health in Medicare payments?

Eta was a 76-year-old woman with a recent heart attack in and out of the hospital over the last several months. Her course had been complicated by social determinants of health, in that she lacked reliable transportation for necessary follow-up, had un…

More than a “bad day”: Asian-American medical trainees need your support

On March 16, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long had a “bad day,” in the words of Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, and went to three different spas or massage parlors to kill eight people, including six Asian-America…

More than a “bad day”: Asian-American medical trainees need your support

On March 16, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long had a “bad day,” in the words of Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, and went to three different spas or massage parlors to kill eight people, including six Asian-America…

Identity politics and performative activism

The last four years of American political life have demonstrated the pervasive nature of identity politics in America. We are so sharply divided that we can’t even choose to agree on the terms of reality. In a world so divided, letting people know what…

Protect the women who protect us

On a typical pandemic Thursday night, I found myself scrolling through TikTok.  This has turned into the guilty pleasure of my life.  Sometimes you need something to do that will make you forget about your own problems and work.  On this particular day…

Do politics have a place in medicine? [PODCAST]

“In addition to being a pediatrician, I am Jewish and the granddaughter of a sole Holocaust survivor. My grandfather’s family perished in Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland. My grandfather alone escaped, skiing through the night, to his sa…