The fertility rate in the United States, and globally, has been on a steady decline. This is the sixth consecutive year that there has been a reduction in the fertility rate, which has decreased by an average of 2 percent. Numerous factors contribute to the global decline in fertility, such as economic instability, increased educational attainment among women, delaying marriage, and the decrease in …
Why air pollution is making us infertile
The COVID-19 pandemic has been raging in the United States for over two years. Health care workers across the country have been chronically pushed to their limits as we navigate difficult situations on a daily basis. The advent of the COVID-19 vaccine, although a powerful tool in our crusade against the pandemic, has created a new branch of emotions for health care workers towards unvaccinated patients or those with vaccine …
How to cope with pandemic fatigue
I’ve had doctors listen to my heart many times in my life. Recent work I did in Pakistan as an anthropologist let me listen to theirs.
A few months ago, I embarked on an ethnographic study to understand what health care professionals saw as the psychosocial needs of pediatric patients. This involved conversations with several doctors in Pakistan, who had volunteered to share their views about pediatric patient care. As I …
Listening to the doctor’s heart
“Digital mental health apps have increased access to mental health care for people around the world. You can find services that fit your specific needs, often on a 24/7/365 basis, so if you need support in the middle of the night, it’s there. Digital apps can include resource libraries, …
Digital apps and sustaining mental health [PODCAST]
Tapping into the mindset of one of the most villainous cinematic computers, the HAL 9000 of 2001 A Space Odyssey, may provide introspection to save us from the same paranoid meltdown that led HAL (spoiler alert) to embark on a murderous rampage. Homicidal activity should not be a lurking risk in any of us, but burnout is.
Briefly, in case you are unfamiliar with Stanly Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi …
Human nature will help patients better than any algorithm or AI
Before COVID-19, meal planning and grocery shopping were the most time-consuming tasks of my life as a physician and mother of three young children. Now, meal planning is an indulgence compared to “COVID contingency planning” — the taxing brainwork of imagining multiple possible scenarios and following them through to the end with every iteration and its possible consequence accounted for. Add to this the need to insert updated but easy-to-misinterpret …
Am I a doctor or a contingency plan?
I recently had an opportunity to assist a hospital organization with its electronic health records implementation in Las Vegas. I’m usually working non-stop during implementations, but I was ecstatic when I could get a break from work to sightseeing. I arranged with a tour bus to explore the Grand Canyon (I’m not much into gambling).
I reported to the tour bus at 6 a.m. and was ushered inside the remarkably comfortable …
The artistic side of a broken pot: a story about Oracle and Cerner
Telehealth is the best option for millions of Americans, but more Americans need to be included.
Three-hundred-and-thirty U.S. health organizations have called on Congress to act swiftly in renewing waivers that allow for the provision of telehealth services and to consider permanently allowing virtual health services.
The COVID-19 pandemic has established that telehealth and technology-delivered services — like apps — are here to stay and benefit …
Want to improve telehealth? Ask people with disabilities.
I have been a staunch advocate for the fight against leprosy since 1991, when I first witnessed afflicted human beings in their advanced stages of the illness traipsing the streets of India and Bangladesh, most if not all begging to survive.
In medical school, I learned the basics of this “biblical” disease, but now as a physician and a world-traveled photojournalist, I took …
Leprosy: a disease that turns hands into paws, feet into stumps, and eyes into darkness
“The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is widely acknowledged as a violation of ethics today, but the social conditions of the time allowed the grave injustices to happen in plain sight. In the 1930s, social Darwinism emerged as justification for racist practices. The perceived inevitability of African Americans’ natural “extinction” was …
A nuanced look at the Tuskegee syphilis study [PODCAST]
I badged myself back to the operating room and hiked up my ill-fitting scrubs. The bouffant was twice the size of my head. It made me feel like a child playing dress-up in adult clothes. As I walked to the OR, I rehearsed what I would say in my head. No matter how many surgeries I watched, I could never get over my pre-case jitters. What if I break the …
Don’t forget the socks and shoes: a reflection on the third year of medical school
One year ago, the FDA granted emergency use authorization of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., and nearly 549 million total vaccine doses have been given since. These vaccines have been safe, effective methods in preventing infection and death from COVID-19.
Vaccine recipients had a lower overall risk of death from non-COVID-19 disease compared to unvaccinated counterparts.
Among available vaccines, …
People over profit: Pfizer and Moderna must share vaccine technology
“I love selling,” said no doctor ever.
Doctors often love buying. Expensive cars. Fancy watches. Luxury vacations. Hello, lifestyle upgrade! But very few love selling.
I find it is a common response to look at salespeople with disdain. Pharmaceuticals. Medical devices. EMR systems. Everything. Everyone is always trying to sell us something! Ugh!
I admit that I was one of them. I thought I didn’t need to “sell.” Doctors are in demand, after …
Why selling will make you a happier doctor
These are my views and should not be construed as investment advice.
If you’ve tuned into the news over the last year, you’ve probably heard of people spending millions on digital JPGs, or people acquiring these digital images and then “flipping” them for a profit. Many of my friends made six-figure profits last year by speculating on digital NFTs, though I don’t recommend it.
You’ve probably heard of terms …
How NFTs, DAOs, Web3 and the metaverse impact health care
The COVID-19 pandemic helped bring out people’s true colors. After two years of the unrelenting pressures of the pandemic, people’s true colors came out, and I will be frank about this truth. As physicians, we often put our patient’s comfort before ours, but at what point does one have to stop and reflect on this. As physicians, we are often put on a pedestal and have unrealistic expectations. We want …
Society has unrealistic expectations of physicians
“Regulators should push health savings accounts (HSA) and businesses should offer them. While HSAs are growing, they are still only available to 30 percent of workers — more likely for larger companies than smaller ones. This, of course, is a way to help pay for extra medical costs almost …
High deductible health insurance is bankrupting Americans [PODCAST]
The hands were heavily stained black, the skin with severe eczematous changes, yet she did not mention them. She was a young mother who had come to the clinic to have her six-month-old baby boy seen by the “doctors from America.” I was the team leader of a faith-based medical team serving in the outskirts of Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania in Northwest Africa. We were there to provide primary …
May the needs of others become personal to you
Health care is now at a crossroads.
We’ve been hearing that phrase more often recently, but what does that mean? Being at a crossroads signifies that now is the time to make a decision that will affect the future in substantial and irrevocable ways.
Why is health care at a crossroads now? Americans are getting sicker as every year passes: “A 2007 study reported that seven chronic diseases have a total impact on …
Individualism vs. the common good: It is time for the pendulum to swing back
When it comes to eating disorders, there are plenty of incorrect assumptions. Let’s debunk three of them.
Myth: Eating disorders occur only in teenage, rich white girls.
This myth perpetuates stereotypes and can discourage people from getting treatment as they think they do not have an eating disorder as they do not fit the mold.
When people think of eating disorders, the image is often of an emaciated, white teenage girl in the …
3 eating disorder myths that health care professionals should debunk
“As the next COVID-19 variant hits our country, I feel a renewed sense of urgency. We need to move faster to invest in an infrastructure that protects our nation’s health care workforce before we lose more nurses, doctors, and other care team members. Every day they risk their own …
Stop health care’s great resignation [PODCAST]
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