“When my patients asked me about losing weight, I would say, ‘Eat less and exercise more.’ I know that it is more complicated than that. There are psychological and socioeconomic factors. There is bariatric surgery and there are medications. But ‘eat less and exercise more’ is common sense, and …
An excerpt from Modern Healthcare Delivery, Deliverance or Debacle: A Glimpse From the Inside Out.
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein
In my book, I outline some of the critical drivers of the high cost of medical care in the U.S. These include waste as …
One year after the White House instated an executive order focusing on health equity and support for underserved communities, changes are in progress. But even with the positive news that the Omicron surge has peaked with the seven-day case average dropping, gaping holes in health disparities are still unanswered.
Some hospitals and health care systems such as CoxHealth have hired diversity, equity, …
As 2021 passed into 2022, I was hoping new stories would emerge and dominate the medical landscape. So, I did a bit of crowdsourcing on social media and among colleagues. Here are five topics I’d like to read less about — if for no other reason than they’ve been discussed and vented ad nauseam with little likelihood of resolution unless words give way to meaningful action.
COVID-19
We’re rapidly approaching the three-year …
Before I worked as a medical scribe, I didn’t realize how many mildly ill people visited the emergency department (ED). In my first few weeks, though, I learned that patients with minor complaints, such as sprains, cavities, rashes, and common cold symptoms, actually present to the ED quite often – often enough that the hospital where I worked had to dedicate an entire 12-bed wing to them. In most EDs, …
Millions of Americans each week watch as fictional television matriarch Rebecca Pearson, in the NBC-TV series, “This Is Us,” struggles with frustrations of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and fear of an unknown health future. In the coming decades, millions more will experience this in real life.
Guardianship — or the care and legal control over another person’s life —may become one of the biggest issues of the next three …
An excerpt from The Bonds We Share: Images of Humanity, 40 Years Around the Globe.
The Bonds We Share is a photo essay that features Dr. Losack’s photography in his travels 43 years around the globe. Dr. Losack goes on to state that racism, xenophobia, divisiveness, and discrimination continue to divide us as human beings. Tack on a global pandemic, it …
There are few silver linings related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but one that stands out is the growing recognition that health equity must be an essential guiding principle for health care organizations going forward.
The broader health care system suffered greatly due to the coronavirus outbreak that has infected tens of millions and killed hundreds of thousands nationwide, but vulnerable patient populations and marginalized communities were far more susceptible to long-term …
I am a physician at a critical access hospital. I manage both the ER and inpatient service and am the only physician in the hospital. This is the reality for many rural hospitals across the country. With no urgent care in town, and with primary care offices few and far between, these hospitals see everything.
We see patients with ailments from a minor finger laceration to those with septic shock from …
As a nation, we have committed to a social imperative for education — an aspirational vision, based on its broad social benefit, for universal literacy and numeracy of our citizens — as manifested in our systems of mandatory K-12 education.
While this vision remains a work-in-progress — there are significant inequities and differences of opinion as to the process and content of education — the shared value of, and responsibility for, …
When newly admitted medical students enroll in their respective programs, they participate in the cherished White Coat Ceremony, in which they eagerly vow to stop at nothing to help patients—to go above and beyond to provide the highest quality care to any and every individual who needs it. Though this aspiration is not overtly naïve, it is, perhaps, exceedingly optimistic. As training progresses, many students come to realize that the …
Martin Luther King once said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Sadly, this remains true today. Instead of simply providing the care one needs, access to care varies based on wealth, status, and the type of insurance product a person has.
I have been working as an emergency physician, health services researcher, and leader in health care for over 30 years. …
As I plug in the microphone and check the link, I imagine them on the mountain, kicking frozen boots into the night ice as the wind explodes over the ridge and rifles through the down of their parkas. I imagine the anemic glow of Jeff’s headlamp against the expanse of the Himalayas and Erik bending into the incline as he follows the nylon rope; he can hear the sharp tinker …
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Parents of disabled children together with Disability Rights Texas won a ruling in November that could have ramifications well beyond the state of Texas. In July, Texas Governor Abbot issued an executive order, GA-38, that prohibited schools from instituting a mask mandate. He insisted that whether a child should be compelled to wear a mask should be up to a child’s parents.
Judge Lee Yeakel declared that the Governor’s order Read more…
A 2012 letter to Mr. Leonard Pitts, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
I am not sure why I feel so compelled to write you. You probably will not even see this email, but I still must do so. I am a 56-year-old Christian white male physician living in North Carolina. I am a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the University of Alabama School of …
Despite health professionals’ efforts at conveying the effectiveness of immunization, many African Americans remain skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Getting to the root of this distrust is critical as the Delta and Omicron variants stoke up the number of positive COVID-19 cases across the United States. And the spread of the virus is not uniform. According to the National Vital Statistics System, Black Americans incur the highest COVID-19 …
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“Crowdfunding models of paying for health care maximize the probability that all members’ eligible bills will be paid in full each month. These models come without the burdens of skyrocketing premiums and deductibles. Unlike traditional models, members aren’t chained to yearly contracts and have more flexibility and autonomy with …
When I entered the field of medicine, the goal was clear; to make patients “better.” Through my hospital-based training and practice as an internal medicine physician, I developed a strong interest in illness prevention — how can we keep patients from coming here in the first place? The answer became crystal clear. What wasn’t clear was how to focus on preventative care in the current structure of the U.S. health …
Massachusetts is again experiencing a COVID-19 surge and our hospitals are overwhelmed, mostly with unvaccinated patients.
As a practicing physician who takes care of many high-risk diabetic patients, I ask all my patients about their COVID-19 vaccination status. I explain to my unvaccinated patients that the benefits of vaccination far exceed the risk, both at the individual and societal levels.
Unfortunately, this conversation only convinces a minority of the unvaccinated to get …
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In almost all organizations, an employee has a supervisor responsible for guiding the employee in doing their job. This requires good communication between the two.
Currently, in medicine, especially during stays in the hospital, there is a similar relationship between physicians: The attending physician recruits the necessary specialist physicians to provide care for the patient and supervises their care. The difference is that this relationship is just for the patient, and …
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