Policy

The Supreme Court must consider science, not pseudo-science, in public health rulings

Policy
April 16, 2024

Measles is on the rise in more than a dozen states, an alarming surge for a vaccine-preventable disease eliminated in the United States nearly 25 years ago. Meanwhile, young women exposed to relentless unscientific deception by social media algorithms are abandoning hormonal contraception in favor of significantly less effective methods that result in more unwanted pregnancies. In Louisiana, women with nonviable …

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Medicine is not apolitical: Your vote dictates your ability to practice medicine

Policy
April 11, 2024

It’s Wednesday, March 6th, 2024. The day after Super Tuesday. I am sitting in the library, taking a break from writing a final paper for my health economics class, when I see a Politico article: “San Francisco’s Proposition F passed.”

3,000 miles away from my hometown and my medical school, all I can think about are the patients I served in the hospital who were barely …

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Do they care if women die? Exploring women’s rights.

Policy
March 18, 2024

I was faced with a stark question—one that, though I have spoken openly about women’s rights, somehow I had not distilled into the succinct question posed by a coming-of-age woman living and attempting to digest our country’s policies. Simply put: “Mom, so they don’t care if women die?”

Oof! For a person who has a plethora of words for almost anything, I was caught off guard. My first instinct was to …

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Truth be told: We have a leadership crisis, not a health care crisis

Policy
February 20, 2024

In the annals of history, the transformative impact of a few courageous leaders has left an indelible mark, altering the course of nations and reshaping the face of societies. From the visionary leadership of figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to the groundbreaking initiatives of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, history is replete with examples of leaders who navigated their nations through crises, leaving an enduring legacy. Unfortunately, …

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Blame game in U.S. health care: Who’s responsible and what’s the solution?

Policy
February 16, 2024

The perception that our U.S. health care system is broken has become nearly fact among health care workers and the public alike. Many other countries are facing similar challenges, beyond the recent spotlight on our Canadian and British friends across the pond. The issue remains: Who are we to blame and more importantly, what can we do about it?

The angst is typically directed at insurance companies or government interference. Many …

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The Federal SAVE Act: a beacon of hope for health care worker safety

Policy
January 27, 2024

It’s a narrative that has become disturbingly familiar: different health care providers, yet the same traumatic story.

Ramon, an idealistic new nurse, was drawn to nursing to make a meaningful impact in the lives of the most vulnerable. But in an instant, his love for nursing changed. After just six months as a nurse, a patient’s son viciously attacked Ramon, enraged over his mother’s COVID-19-related hospitalization. In a blind fury, …

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Pandemic aftermath: Navigating a new normal in health, education, and social dynamics

Policy
January 25, 2024

Psychological distress. In 2021, 40% of high school students felt sad and hopeless, 20% seriously considered suicide, and 10% attempted it, with suicides among young people hitting their highest rates ever, though they fell in 2022. Since the greatest increase was before 2017, we can’t really blame the pandemic. And some “innovative” approaches for combatting …

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How value-based care can address health inequities

Policy
January 19, 2024

Often the key to solving a troublesome problem is approaching it from a different direction. As 19th-century mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi wisely noted (and as popularized by renowned investor Charlie Munger), “Invert, always invert.”

Therefore, when we consider ways to transform our current health care system in the U.S. to deliver more reliable, equitable, cost-effective value, we should explore the factors that perpetuate a continued unreliable, wasteful system that propagates …

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How community health needs assessments can assist emergency providers in tackling social determinants of health

Policy
January 17, 2024

Dr. Gray is a young, bright emergency medicine physician who recently relocated to Austin, Texas, to start his first job as an attending. Nervous and excited, Dr. Gray is eager to explore the lively city of Austin and start practicing emergency medicine on his own. After a few months in the city, he noticed higher rates of obesity, homelessness, and uncontrolled diabetes among his patients compared to his prior practice …

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Global aspirations for value-based health care

Policy
January 13, 2024

The authors of the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst article urge countries to allocate 1 percent of their health care budgets toward establishing standards and processes for assessing the value of health outcomes. What matters most to patients is the fundamental principle of value-based health care. The cost of unnecessary care amounts to billions every year, not only in the United States but worldwide. This article presents the …

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America’s health care safety net is in danger

Policy
January 10, 2024

A new health crisis is looming on the horizon in the United States, and it will affect the most vulnerable people. I am not talking about another pandemic, the downstream impact of delayed preventive screenings, or even the ongoing substance use crisis. I am talking about the endangerment of America’s health care safety net, including the providers that serve marginalized communities.

Safety net providers are primarily in unserved and underserved communities, …

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Are convenience stores making addiction convenient?

Policy
January 7, 2024

It is not breaking news that we are currently in the midst of a mental health and substance use disorder crisis. We saw a record number of overdose deaths in a 12-month period from May 2022 to May 2023. According to the CDC, overdose deaths totaled more than 112,000 during that period. There has been an all-hands-on-deck effort to curb these deaths with efforts aimed at decreasing supply, educating the …

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The rise of direct primary care in America

Policy
January 2, 2024

Health care and how individuals receive it has been at the forefront of public concern for many years. Now, more than ever, a priority should be placed on discovering amenable solutions to address the incomprehensible challenges impacting this nation’s health care system. I believe that direct primary care (DPC) holds the potential to improve the way Americans access and experience health care. An article published by Medical Economics says …

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High-deductible health plans: a barrier to care for chronic conditions

Policy
December 31, 2023

At the peak of the coronavirus crisis in 2020, American policymakers were faced with the critical challenge of how to encourage as many Americans as possible to be tested for and vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. Fortunately, Congress rose to this challenge by passing legislation that, in addition to providing these services to the uninsured, required private insurance plans to eliminate all out-of-pocket costs associated with getting vaccinated or tested. …

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To address youth mental health, we must address insurance barriers

Policy
December 30, 2023

It’s been two years since the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health. Yet sadly, very little has changed. This year, 25 percent of youth have been diagnosed with a mental health condition. More than 20 percent of teens have seriously considered suicide, and more than 40 percent of high school students reported that they’d felt so sad …

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Post-pandemic nursing workforce challenges continue to mount

Policy
December 11, 2023

The nurse and clinician workforce crisis in the United States is a complex issue with multiple contributing factors that include clinical staff burnout, unmanageable workloads, the departure of nurses reaching retirement age, and the pandemic’s lingering impact on health systems. A 2023 study by the American Hospital Association (AHA) found that the U.S. will face a physician shortage of as many as 124,000 by 2034 and will need to hire …

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Physician well-being: Overcoming administrative hurdles

Policy
December 6, 2023

Representatives of a battered and stressed Canadian medical profession gathered in Montreal and virtually last week for the 7th annual Canadian Conference on Physician Health (CCPH) – the first such meeting in four years and the largest to date. One of the main pain points identified as facing individual physicians is the burden of administrative work, and this was the focus of a special cross-border plenary session featuring Canadian Medical …

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Health care’s hidden problem: hospital primary care losses

Policy
December 5, 2023

Health care is constantly evolving, and it’s no secret that many hospitals are bleeding money when it comes to their primary care practices. On the low end, a hospital loses $127,000 per year on a primary care physician. Anecdotally, a rural hospital in Indiana expressed that they lose nearly $500,000 per year!

Headlines are filled with stories about rural hospitals (& many others) struggling to keep their …

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From fishing licenses to gun control

Policy
December 3, 2023

My son’s favorite thing to do is fish. I bought him a brand-new Mickey the Mouse fishing pole and a tackle box for his birthday. His favorite spot was on a small inland lake in a state park. On the bank of the lake, we would fish underneath a large cottonwood tree decorated with bobbers and lures that had become snagged in the branches.

The tree was tall and old and …

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CME Spotlights