Rhea Boyd, MD
Rhea Boyd is a pediatrician.
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Latest articles
Physician voices
Although I write a blog that centers people of color in exploring the connections between the medical system and race -- an activity that has always been fundamentally personal -- I rarely discuss how it personally affects me. The occasions…
Although I write a blog that centers people of color in exploring the connections between the medical system and race — an activity that has always been fundamentally personal — I rarely discuss how it personally affects me.
The occasions in which I have, were driven by my need to make sense of Trayvon and Walter, Tamir and …
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My anger isn’t the poison. Racism is.
Health policy
The American health care system is set up to care for a certain subset of the population -- sick people -- people with chronic disease, acute illness, acute injury, and complex disorders like cancer or metabolic issues. The problem is,…
The American health care system is set up to care for a certain subset of the population — sick people — people with chronic disease, acute illness, acute injury, and complex disorders like cancer or metabolic issues.
The problem is, this set up doesn’t create market incentives to care for the well effectively, or to identify those at risk for disease and efficiently and reliably intervene, at scale.
To reconcile this cognitive dissonance …
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It’s time to free doctors from their boxes
Physician voices
Scalability is the end goal of nearly every tech start-up, systems innovation, and teenager you-tubing their cat -- it’s going viral, business-style. And traditionally, it’s been seen as a marker of relevance and success. Growth is good, right? But in…
Scalability is the end goal of nearly every tech start-up, systems innovation, and teenager you-tubing their cat — it’s going viral, business-style. And traditionally, it’s been seen as a marker of relevance and success. Growth is good, right?
But in health care systems transformation, do we lose something meaningful when we measure the value of our work by its national impact?
Take Iora Health, a new health …
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Health care transformation is local: The problem with scaling Iora Health
Physician voices
As Baltimore erupts in fiery protest following the death of Freddie Gray, the city joins scores of others who have recently challenged the role of police in community. With the disproportionate representation of black males in the correctional system and…
As Baltimore erupts in fiery protest following the death of Freddie Gray, the city joins scores of others who have recently challenged the role of police in community.
With the disproportionate representation of black males in the correctional system and the videotaped deaths of those approached by police for seemingly petty infractions, the longstanding concern for a criminal justice system that differentially treats communities of color, is …
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The Baltimore riots: We should look beyond stereotypes
Physician voices
The recent killing of Walter Scott was another brutal reminder of the home African-Americans wake to daily. Their America, is one where your father might not come home at night, because his brake light went out, and that cost him…
The recent killing of Walter Scott was another brutal reminder of the home African-Americans wake to daily. Their America, is one where your father might not come home at night, because his brake light went out, and that cost him his life. It’s a place where petty crimes are penalized by life sentences, doled out on the streets by the very men and women charged with their …
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Walter Scott and a physician’s conscience
Physician voices
The tragic deaths of Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and untold others, deeply grieve our national conscience. But more black men die in America from heart disease than from police brutality, and we never mention…
The tragic deaths of Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and untold others, deeply grieve our national conscience. But more black men die in America from heart disease than from police brutality, and we never mention those parallel realities in the same breath, let alone collectively mourn those dead.
Why is that?
Because it’s not just that African-Americans have higher rates of heart disease and its related risk …
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The arc of injustice: How racism kills
Health policy
Incentive structures in health care have to change. Right now, we pay for services, or have a so-called, fee-for-service system. The idea is that the more patients doctors see, the more expensive tests doctors order and the more patients doctors…
Incentive structures in health care have to change. Right now, we pay for services, or have a so-called, fee-for-service system. The idea is that the more patients doctors see, the more expensive tests doctors order and the more patients doctors hospitalize, the more money clinics and hospitals make. This incentive structure has transformed our health care into sick care.
The reality is, in America, we are adept at caring for complicated medical problems that require …
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3 ways to change the way we pay for care
Physician voices
There is little to say once you’ve said this before. Although the sadness brings fresh tears, they are also old tears. The grief becomes familiar and so too the inevitable resumption of everyday life. The pain bores to the soul…
There is little to say once you’ve said this before. Although the sadness brings fresh tears, they are also old tears. The grief becomes familiar and so too the inevitable resumption of everyday life. The pain bores to the soul but settles in the subconscious, where it rests, privately born and quietly hidden, lest …
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Ferguson: What should physicians do?
Health policy
In the post-Affordable Care Act health care landscape, sweeping hospital closures have created new barriers to access in a system already criticized for its fragmentation and saturation. Looking back over the past 20 years, urban hospitals, and urban trauma centers…
In the post-Affordable Care Act health care landscape, sweeping hospital closures have created new barriers to access in a system already criticized for its fragmentation and saturation. Looking back over the past 20 years, urban hospitals, and urban trauma centers in particular, bore the brunt of this impact, closing at the highest rates in the country. Now, evidence suggests the impact of urban hospital closures may disproportionately affect those …
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Hospital closures affect the safety net. Here’s how.
Medical education
Earlier this year, I started teaching a course to first year pediatric residents at Stanford. In it, I challenge the trainees to identify the structural contexts in which patients and families make choices that may impact their health and well-being.…
Earlier this year, I started teaching a course to first year pediatric residents at Stanford. In it, I challenge the trainees to identify the structural contexts in which patients and families make choices that may impact their health and well-being. Termed structural competency, the goal is to enable young physicians to understand and confront stigma and inequality as key determinants of health. We …
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Inequality in medicine: Be thoughtful about the way we educate our trainees
Physician voices
I have a confession. It is a secret I have held for more than 10 years and it is a lesson I have learned from other women. As society continues to debate the terms and conditions required for women to…
I have a confession.
It is a secret I have held for more than 10 years and it is a lesson I have learned from other women.
As society continues to debate the terms and conditions required for women to be leaders, what is often missing is the lens of the woman of color. It is time to talk about the socialization of girls, and brown girls in particular, and the guise …
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New feminism is about women, work, and the will to be authentic
Health policy
Comcast recently announced it is merging with Time Warner, the 2nd largest cable company in the US. Together, this deal nets Comcast an estimated 57% of the cable subscriber marketplace and heralds a new oligarchy in US media and entertainment.…
Comcast recently announced it is merging with Time Warner, the 2nd largest cable company in the US. Together, this deal nets Comcast an estimated 57% of the cable subscriber marketplace and heralds a new oligarchy in US media and entertainment. It’s big news for Comcast, but aren’t as excited.
Why?
Because both Comcast and Time Warner have been consistently rated the worst providers of customer service in the cable industry. Now as they …
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The consolidation of health care: 5 questions to ask
Physician voices
There is a disconcerting myth about single mothers that has been circulating in our society for some time. It was popularized in the Reagan Era as a denunciation of US social welfare policy and resulted in a pointed caricature of…
There is a disconcerting myth about single mothers that has been circulating in our society for some time. It was popularized in the Reagan Era as a denunciation of US social welfare policy and resulted in a pointed caricature of a woman on welfare, forever to be known as the “welfare queen” or the entitled single mother.
The narrative of such a woman goes something like this: Not only is she …
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The myth of the entitled single mother remains as relevant as ever
Physician voices
Recently, CVS Caremark announced that starting October 1, they will no longer be selling tobacco products, including cigarettes, in their CVS stores. Taking a bold and unexpected stance on the issue, CVS’s CEO Larry Merlo reasoned to ABC News that…
Recently, CVS Caremark announced that starting October 1, they will no longer be selling tobacco products, including cigarettes, in their CVS stores. Taking a bold and unexpected stance on the issue, CVS’s CEO Larry Merlo reasoned to ABC News that “We’ve come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered.”
What does he mean by that?
Here, he is referring to CVS’s robust market of …
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Banning cigarettes is a start but CVS still has a long way to go
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