Category: Public Health & Policy

A physician-parent’s thoughts on reopening schools

Spoiler alert: If you are looking for the “right” answer as to whether or not your school should reopen for in-person teaching or if you should send your kid to school (versus virtual learning), you will not find that answer below.  But you will find s…

Something’s rotten in America’s health care

My friend, the hospitalist, was livid as he came from meeting the administration. “They said doctors cost too much!” he sputtered. “We’re an expense. An expense the hospital can no longer support. We are an expense!” He turned purple. Nice color. Like …

Black lives will not start to matter until Black health matters

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minnesota has awakened a country out of hibernation and put Black Lives Matter on the national platform. Practicing primary care in Springfield, Massachusetts, I have known for a long time t…

Is now the time for single payer?

With the news that nearly $6 million Americans have lost their employer-sponsored health due to COVID, it is finally time to ask ourselves: is the “American Model” of health care working? The “American Model” is a system of fragmentation: one in which …

An OB/GYN resident’s perspective on Black Lives Matter

As protests broke out on the streets of downtown Cleveland and the National Guard camped outside the hospital, I delivered a beautiful, Black baby boy. In some ways, that night was like any other night. Another vaginal delivery, another moment filled w…

This physician decided not to get offended and started a healing interaction

“I absolutely insist that you accept this 5-dollar bill,” said the slightly hunched, distinguished-looking Caucasian man in khaki shorts and a T-shirt. He held my big brown hand firmly open with the fingers of one hand while placing a five-…

Unethical policy: Resuming federal lethal injections during a global pandemic

The United States government has resumed capital punishment after a 17-year hiatus. Even setting aside questions of whether the death penalty is legal, ethical, or humane, the renewal of the practice of lethal injection poses some grave concerns, parti…

Discrimination kills: What to do about implicit bias training

An African American female had been to the hospital three times in the last week for severe abdominal pain. Yelling for pain medication, she returned with the same complaint. The abdominal imaging two weeks ago was normal, and doctors had labeled her a…

Debunking false arguments about COVID-19 racial disparities

Black Americans are dying at disproportionate rates from COVID-19. In Chicago, nearly 70% of deaths involve black individuals, who comprise only 30% of the population. At a closer look, these deaths were initially concentrated in just five neighborhood…

The unseen debt of the pandemic

Some images stick in the mind as unreal and incandescent things, despite their lived experience. My mind holds onto the gray-haired woman, stooped from age and wearing the hospital-issue facemask, standing alone with her hands clasped tightly behind he…