Public Health & Policy
Amazon, CVS, and Walmart are playing health care’s long game
In recent months, three of the nation’s largest retailers have stirred up a frenzy on Wall Street with a string of high-profile health care deals.
Amazon bought primary-care company One Medical in early August for $3.9 billion. That was a month before CVS spent $8 billion to acquire Signify Health and its network of 10,000 clinicians who make home visits (both virtually and IRL). A day later, Walmart inked a 10-year …
The national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health offers hope
The announcement of the Biden-Harris Administration’s national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health is a critical step toward building a healthier nation. For the first time in half a century, the administration announced more than $8 million in private and public sector commitments to help end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases by 2030. The focus on food security, nutrition, and health is encouraging, as public health champions have …
Gun violence during residency: Run. Hide. Fight.
I no longer react to the chiming from my phone when a push notification alerts me of another mass shooting. I have become numb to such alarms. Perhaps it is the increasing frequency of these alerts or a feeling of inevitability, made even starker by my personal and multiple encounters with gun violence in the last year. The gun violence epidemic is ubiquitous.
Ten months ago, there was an active shooter …
The middleman mentality is killing American medicine
Between producers and consumers, you’ll find a cadre of professionals who broker deals, facilitate transactions, and move goods and services along.
They’re called “middlemen,” and they thrive in virtually every industry — from real estate and retail to finance and travel services. If not for middlemen, houses and blouses wouldn’t sell. Banks and online booking sites wouldn’t exist. Middlemen are the reason a tomato grown in South America makes it aboard …
Practicing great medicine got a lot simpler. It’s health care that’s getting in the way.
We pay more than any other nation for health care, yet we have suffered the single biggest decline in life expectancy since WWII. Something went wrong. At a time of record inflation and rising taxes, isn’t it time we stopped to ask where the money is going, what exactly we are paying for, and why?
Astonishingly, nearly half the federal budget goes to health care in one way or another. Either …
Next of kin in the medical decision making process
Four years ago, as chairman of the hospital ethics committee, I was asked to convene an emergency meeting brought by a distraught family as medical decisions had to be made for their ill loved one. The hospital, HMO lawyers, the family, three adult children, and their mother were at the meeting.
The father had arrived at the hospital unconscious and was admitted to the intensive care unit, where medical care was …
My motherland is burning, but patient care can’t wait
My relationship with my cultural identity has always been a complicated one. As many children of immigrants can relate, I often felt disconnected from my parents’ country of origin in an attempt to assimilate to American life.
I was born in Manhattan, New York, and have always defined myself as a New Yorker first and an Iranian-American second. From a young age, I have watched from the periphery as Iran has …
America is a magnet for global STEM talent
This essay is inspired in part by my recent encounter with a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For starters, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — or NASA for short — is an agency of the U.S. government responsible for America’s space program and aeronautics research. JPL, NASA’s research and development center located in Pasadena, California, produces spacecraft called rovers used in extra-planetary explorations.
It turns out that this …
I went to Ukraine to help. Here’s what you can do.
I went to Poland and Ukraine in April and May of 2022, hoping to support the Ukrainian people in their defense of their country and democracy itself.
Vladimir Putin had put the world in a vise.
“Let me do what I want, or you will risk nuclear war,” was the implication. We’ve seen this before, I thought. Putin is Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one, and he needs to be …
What does it mean to truly be an ally?
The University of Utah Physician Assistant Students Supporting Equity and Diversity (PASSED) group believes it’s important to discuss what it truly means to be an ally. This term has recently become more popular; however, it seems that “allyship” is being confused with “generalized/passive acknowledgment.” The definition of an ally is one who unites themselves with another to promote a common interest. Allyship calls for understanding the constant oppression that plagues …
Exploring the critical gaps in Canada’s health workforce planning [PODCAST]
Public health requires collective courage [PODCAST]
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Insurance companies deny medical care. And that’s wrong. [PODCAST]
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“Securing prior authorizations is a daily ordeal for most doctors’ offices. Doctors report that, on average, they must get insurance company approvals 41 times every week. Of the authorization requests that are denied, fully 73% ultimately get …
Ending gun violence in America should be a no-brainer
Brain matter was spilling out the top of the patient’s head in the trauma bay. It doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to know that this is not normal. My pager screamed, “GSW to head – ED Room 1.” Gunshot wound to head – Emergency Department Room 1. As the neurosurgery resident physician on call that night, it was my job to evaluate this patient STAT. I wish I could say this …
Is our health care system based on untruths?
As Americans, we live in one of the most affluent countries in the world. Outwardly, many of our citizens seem to possess the necessities of life: shelter, food, job employment, and world-class health care. But what happens when we take a closer look? Do we see cracks in the foundation?
If we are honest, the answer is a resounding yes. When one looks at the area of health care, there is …
We must work harder to provide COVID relief to other countries
Currently, U.S. officials are considering expanding eligibility for the monkeypox vaccine. Yet, elsewhere, people are still struggling to get access to the COVID-19 vaccine. In many low-income countries, less than half of the population is fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus – sometimes far fewer.
In Haiti, for instance, only 1.4 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, and only 2.2 percent …
A stark contract between American and Canadian health care
An excerpt from A Short Primer on Why Cancer Still Sucks.
The United States has the world’s most expensive health care system. It spends about twice as much each year on every American as the Canadian system spends on Canadians. Per capita, the U.S. spends far more than Canada on drugs …
Don’t let vindictiveness creep into medicine like it has in politics
The callous and inhumane dislocation of migrants recently perpetrated by governors of the states of Florida and Texas reminded me of an equally disdainful and appalling tactic utilized by health care workers since the 1960s: “Greyhound therapy.”
Greyhound therapy refers to attempts by health care workers and administrators to remove undesirable patients from emergency rooms, hospitals, and other types of facilities by providing them one-way tickets on a Greyhound Lines …
Patients come to you for treatment, not your politics
As he was being wheeled in for surgery, President Reagan joked, “I hope you are Republicans.” The surgeon, a liberal Democrat, replied, “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”
All very appropriate and from another era. As a usually intelligent and intellectual segment of society, it is not surprising that physicians should have opinions, including politics. As citizens, they are entitled to them too.
In fact, one would hope that physicians participate …
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Leadership buy-in is the key to preventing burnout [PODCAST]
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A daughter’s reflection on life, death, and pancreatic cancer
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What to do if your lab results are borderline
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Direct primary care limitations for complex patients
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Understanding the unseen role of back-to-school diagnostics [PODCAST]
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Public violence as a health system failure and mental health signal
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Past Week
Past 6 Months
Recent Posts
-
Leadership buy-in is the key to preventing burnout [PODCAST]
-
A daughter’s reflection on life, death, and pancreatic cancer
-
What to do if your lab results are borderline
-
Direct primary care limitations for complex patients
-
Understanding the unseen role of back-to-school diagnostics [PODCAST]
-
Public violence as a health system failure and mental health signal
-
