Jeffrey Hom is a public health official.
Well before I was a physician, I was an art history major at Bowdoin College. Beneath towering pine trees, I spent much of my time in dim lecture rooms off the quad and in the quiet galleries of Maine’s art museums, studying paintings, sculptures, and photographs to understand not just what was being portrayed, but also what they revealed about the people, places, ideas, and defining events of their time. …
“Help me stop doing this.”
Mr. G was a 55-year-old homeless man who uttered these words to us during his fifth hospitalization for problems related to his alcohol use: intoxication, falls, and alcohol withdrawal. He was on a downward spiral through the hospital’s revolving door and felt helpless. As a medical team, we felt helpless too. We did not know how to address his real problem—his cycle of addiction.
Hospitalized patients like …
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