Public Health & Policy

I started sharing my journey through medicine on Instagram about four years ago after I failed the musculoskeletal block during my first year of medical school. I felt alone in my struggles and didn't want anyone else to feel that way. So I started talking about it openly. It quickly became a place to nurture my creative self and build community. And even though a lot ...

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With the 2020 election cycle already moving into high gear, we are hearing a lot about Medicare for all. But is it a serious campaign promise, a catchy bumper sticker or a viable national program? Supporters suggest it will be a panacea for our nation’s health insurance needs. Others are less sure. And some are downright opposed. So where do we go? As a starting point, there are things we can ...

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One of the most popular topics in health care is the idea of universal health care coverage. You know the soundbites: “Medicare for all.” “Single-payer system.” While universal coverage sounds desirable to many, some factors must be considered. In this post, I’m going to provide an aerial view of this complicated topic. My goal is to translate this issue into patient-friendly language that all of us can understand. This topic isn’t ...

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Say you want to know which baseball players provide the most value for the big dollars they’re being paid. A Google search quickly yields analytics. But suppose your primary care physician just diagnosed you with cancer. What will a search for a “high value” cancer doctor tell you? Not much. Public concern over bloated and ...

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I often wonder what it was like before patient-centered care became a mainstream catchphrase. Was there a poor relationship between the patient and physician in the outpatient setting? Were hospitalized patients’ feelings, desires, goals, and therapy options ignored? It amazes me that we were able to care for patients more than ten years ago without using a “patient-centered” approach. According to NEJM Catalyst, “Patient-and family-centered care encourages the ...

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Jimmy McMillan might have been right. Mr. McMillan ran for mayor of New York City as the founder and candidate of the “Rent Is Too Damn High” Party. And while he was talking about real estate rent, he might have made a similar complaint about health care’s rent — payments made for costs over what is needed to produce a good or product. Rent is not ...

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More than two-thirds of Americans use social media, and 90 percent of adults in the U.S. have a cell phone. With these tools surrounding us, we must be more connected with one another than ever before. Right? It doesn’t feel like we are. At least, the people who engage with the health care system don’t feel connected to the rest of us. They feel lonely. It feels like we send them ...

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Rudolf Virchow, a pioneering physician of the 1800s, once wrote that “politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale”. Over a century later, this nexus is as apparent as ever, and many doctors engage as practitioners of both. Twitter erupted this past fall with photos of soiled scrubs, resuscitation room floors and
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The evolving politics of single-payer health care conflate the concepts of universal coverage, health care on demand and free health care. To the indiscriminate progressive mind, all three are part of the holy grail. The fly in the ointment is that highly attractive and altruistic politics runs into the brick wall of reality. As Thomas Sowell — a noted Stanford economist — wrote: "The first lesson of economics is scarcity: ...

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