When a child dies under the supervision of the care system, the public response is often immediate and visceral. Media headlines demand answers. Prosecutors search for accountability. And very quickly, attention narrows to a single figure: the frontline social worker.

In recent child protection cases, the dominant questions have sounded strikingly similar. Why did they not notice earlier? Why did they not visit more often? Why did they not intervene?

These questions …

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We owe patients a better explanation about food.

The food didn’t change. The world did, and our guidelines followed.

For many patients, dietary advice feels less like science and more like whiplash.

Their breakfast looks the same. Their milk is the same. Their daily habits are exactly where they left them. What shifts, sometimes violently, is the label we attach to it: healthy, unhealthy, recommended, discouraged.

Consider milk

For decades, we told patients to switch …

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When Anne-Sophie Mutter appeared under the lights in Taipei to play John Williams, the audience was already aging with her. That is not a tragedy; it is a form of wisdom. In a super-aged society, an evening at the concert hall is not only entertainment; it is an anatomy lesson in movement, meaning, and care.

Tempo and governance

The program opened with “Sound the Bells!” The brass did not summon cinematic sentiment; …

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The number was specific: 18,000 steps.

It came from a retired hospital director in Taipei, a physician-administrator who spent four decades building services, negotiating budgets, and managing crises across a health care system that now treats an aging society as its primary patient.

Most physicians retire into silence. He retired into data.

But the more interesting revelation did not come from his smartwatch. It came from the dinner table.

A shift in governance

In Western …

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On a recent morning, my mentor, a retired breast cancer surgeon in his 70s, sent me a screenshot from his Apple Watch.

10,208 steps.
7.25 kilometers.
One flight of stairs.
Before lunch.

For him, it was just another day. For me, a younger volunteer and PhD student watching Taiwan age into a super-aged society, it was a quiet masterclass in what prevention really means.

This surgeon, Dr. Lin, is not just any retiree. For more than …

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Hospitals are not the only ones who rely on volunteers.

Nonprofits rely on them for aging programs. Faith communities rely on them for spiritual formation. Philanthropy relies on them for legitimacy. Even emerging “wellness” and “compassion training” industries rely on them for content and credibility.

But no one ever asks: Who sustains the sustainers?

For more than 20 years, I have watched hospital volunteers become the invisible infrastructure of modern care. We are …

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In Taiwan, the year 2026 marks our transition into a “super-aged society,” where more than 20 percent of the population is over 65. Yet what strikes me most is not the demographic milestone itself, but what it does to the dinner table.

During Lunar New Year gatherings, I often observe a tense choreography among middle-aged children. Who will take father to his cardiology appointment? Who will accompany mother during the day? …

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For many older adults living alone, a smartphone is not a convenience. It is a lifeline.

In elder care meetings, we often discuss telemedicine, wearable sensors, and remote monitoring systems. We focus on dashboards and data. Yet in our pursuit of high-tech solutions, we frequently overlook the most widely used and emotionally loaded digital tool already resting in older adults’ hands: the messaging app.

In Taiwan, as in much of Asia, LINE …

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Consider Mrs. Chen, an 82-year-old woman discharged home after a minor ischemic stroke. On paper, her care plan was flawless.

Her physician intensified her antihypertensive regimen to protect vascular health (medication). Her well-meaning daughter, concerned about blood pressure, switched her to a strict low-sodium porridge diet, unknowingly slashing her protein intake (nutrition). Her physical therapist prescribed a daily walking program to rebuild confidence and strength (exercise).

Two weeks later, Mrs. Chen was …

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On a winter evening in Taipei, random violence erupted across two of the city’s busiest metro stations. Within minutes, lives were lost, dozens were injured, and a familiar cycle followed: shock, fear, calls for more security, and questions about public safety. But for those of us in health care, this should not be framed as a failure of policing alone. It should be recognized for what it truly is: a …

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Medicine is getting faster, louder, and more efficient, and many of us feel something quietly slipping away. We talk about burnout, moral injury, and depersonalized care, but the deeper question is often left untouched: How do we keep the soul of medicine alive while building systems that must scale?

I encountered that question in an unexpected place, not in a policy meeting, not in a spreadsheet, and not in an architectural …

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