Robert Pearl is a plastic surgeon and author of ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients & Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine and Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients. He can be reached on Twitter @RobertPearlMD.
When medical historians write about the coronavirus pandemic, they’ll likely focus on the slow U.S. response and failures of leadership that led to a tragically high death toll. But that will be only part of the story.
From the wreckage and devastation will emerge something few contemporary observers would expect: a brighter future for American health care.
Five technologies, all previously underappreciated and underutilized, will help …
Earlier this year, Houston Methodist gave its 26,000 hospital employees an ultimatum: Get vaccinated or get a new job. It was one of the nation’s first vaccine mandates. And it was a big, multilayered risk: with legal, financial and ethical consequences all hanging in the balance.
In the end, …
Thanks to the marvels of medicine, newly vaccinated Americans are returning to life as normal and partying like it’s 2019. Doctors, who are emerging from the pandemic as national heroes, would like to turn back the clock even further—to the halcyon days of 20th-century medicine.
But doctors, unlike their maskless and freewheeling patients, will be disappointed with what the future holds.
Trying to turn back the clock
Physicians have had a rough century, …
In the “before times,” most Americans went about their lives relatively unpreoccupied with death. In fact, one CBS News poll found only 14 percent of Americans spent “a lot of time” thinking about their own mortality.
What a difference a pandemic makes. With every masked trip to the grocery store, every passerby who coughs too close and every “doom scroll” through …
The Queen’s Gambit, a seven-part Netflix series, has been the darling of streaming television during the coronavirus pandemic. Seen by more than 60 million people, the story chronicles the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon, who grows up in a Kentucky orphanage and goes on to win a world championship.
With its three-dimensional characters and fresh spin on the coming-of-age plotline, the series has captivated the …
Among the questions I’m asked most often as host of the podcast Coronavirus: The Truth are: “How have other nations effectively contained the pandemic?” and “Why can’t the United States copy their success?”
For months, health experts have answered these questions by pointing to a combination of science and strategy. Other nations, they say, test more frequently, impose tighter social restrictions and boast …
No player received as much media-generated attention heading into Super Bowl LIV as Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. All eyes were on him and, when it mattered most, the young signal-caller came through, bringing his team back from a 10-point deficit to win it all.
Mahomes, 24, could teach American health care a valuable lesson about living up to the hype against high-level competition. For decades, self-described “breakthrough” medications, …
Americans are in a sprint to return to the sports they love. Players want to play, coaches want to coach, and teams want to see fans in the stands sooner than later. But what if a return to sports (as they once were) winds up being more of a marathon than a sprint?
For months I’ve been Read more…
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, a coronavirus vaccine could be ready for distribution within months.
“We feel cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year, and as we go into 2021,” he told lawmakers on July 31, adding, “the plans …
With a combined market cap of more than $2 trillion, technology giants Google and Apple are placing big bets on disrupting the $3.6 trillion health care industry.
Earlier in the year, Apple CEO Tim Cook repeated a claim that “there will be a day we look back and say Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind has been in health care.” Meanwhile, Google Cloud CEO Read more…
We can’t un-bungle our nation’s COVID-19 response. Political leaders acted too slowly; health agencies committed unforced errors with testing kits and, amid the confusion, an information fog settled over the land.
Americans remain afraid, perplexed, and …
The coronavirus (COVID-19) is the single-most important topic on the minds of Americans, and it remains the subject of regular updates from health officials. And yet, despite the abundance of scientific facts and guidance surrounding the disease, misinformation abounds as confusion persists.
Avoiding many of the worst consequences and doomsday predictions will depend, in part, …
In a shocking development that could transform the medical profession, the International Journal of Health Services published the findings of a study titled, “Primary care, specialty care, and life chances.”
Using multiple regression analysis, the researchers concluded that “primary care is by far the most significant variable related to better health status,” correlating with lower mortality, fewer deaths from heart disease and cancer, and a host of other beneficial health outcomes. By contrast, …
A recent study published in Science, one of the world’s leading academic journals, found that a predictive health care algorithm discriminated against black patients.
The tool, created by Optum, was designed to identify high-risk patients with untreated chronic diseases, thereby helping administrators re-distribute medical resources to those who’d benefit the most. But there was a glitch in the algorithm, according to researchers. Rather than ranking the needs …
Burnout is a big and burgeoning problem in the United States. According to a recent Mayo Clinic report, it affects 28% of the general working population. Among physicians, however, the rate is markedly higher, ranging from 44% to 54% in most studies.
More concerning are the consequences: Doctors who report burnout symptoms are twice as likely to …
Over the past 40 years, the number of U.S. hospitals declined by 12 percent, from more than 7,100 in 1975 to 6,200 in 2017, according to the latest American Hospital Association survey. And, yet, despite shuttering nearly 1,000 facilities, hospitals remain the nation’s largest source of health care spending, accounting for $1.1 trillion annually (or 33% of all national health care expenditures). Much of that money goes …
I’ll admit it. I’m a medical-TV junkie, addicted to 21st-century doctor and hospital dramas (most of which are now streaming on Netflix and other services).
Although some physicians are bothered by sensationalized depictions of their profession, I appreciate these shows for what they deliver: equal parts entertainment and insight. On the one hand, medical dramas are made for our amusement. They’re theatrical escapes from reality, meant to be enjoyed from comforts …
Health care remains the nation’s top voting issue ahead of the 2020 elections, just as it was during the 2018 midterms. Surveys show voters remain frustrated with high drug prices, growing out-of-pocket expenses, and skimpy health-insurance benefits.
The leading candidates have publicly promised to fix these problems, but all are omitting certain details about their health care plans. To help voters …
Why does the most expensive health care system on the planet do such a poor job protecting the lives of pregnant women? More important, what can be done about it?
The United States continues to lead the world in health care spending yet it has the highest maternal death rate among wealthy nations. Researchers have found that maternal mortality in the United States increased by 26.6% from …
Physicians nearing the end of their careers often mourn the loss of the hospital as it once was — the undisputed center of the health care universe. They remember a time when every community doctor rounded on patients in the morning, and every surgery was performed in one of the hospital’s main operating rooms.
Times, like hospitals, have changed. This article looks at how the changing role of the American …
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