I write for several publications, and I’m always pitching to new venues. Recently I pitched an idea to an editor. I wanted to write about gun research from the perspective of a rural physician. In particular, I wanted to ask what might physicians say if researchers found answers that were uncomfortable. What if they found that intact families, strong fathers, religious engagement or familiarity with guns were factors that reduce …
In a New York Post article dated January 23, 2019, the author states how Americans without health care insurance hit 13.7 percent. This 2.8 percent increase means an additional seven-million Americans lack health coverage as noted by the Gallup survey period.
This is not far behind the 18 percent recorded just before the Obamacare mandate in 2014.
Everyone is blamed in this article except the culprits. Do you think for one moment …
In health care, we enjoy a unique opportunity to create special relationships with our work. Few enter these professions for practical reasons, and fewer still survive rigorous training without genuine belief in what they might accomplish. And cliched though they may be, the many mission statements which purport the “art of caring” do convey something real.
But to even for the naïve, spending enough time around health care produces a certain …
Recently, a child was on a waitlist for five months to get into my practice. For this article, I will call him Tiny Tim.
Tiny Tim, now five years old, has a skin condition known as eczema or atopic dermatitis. When we first met, virtuously every area of his body was covered with wounds from constant scratching. Skin that breaks easily and heals poorly can give bacteria access to other parts …
Early voting began recently in Texas with unprecedented excitement, as a record 15 million registered voters made their way to the polls. Reports say polls are looking more like Black Friday shopping lines than early voting locations. Although we cannot predict the results of the election, one thing is clear: healthcare is the top issue. This is hardly surprising given …
Will physicians go extinct? Artificial intelligence, legislation, profit motives in the health care industry, and clever lobbying by non-physician providers may all contribute to our demise. However, I believe the existential threat to our profession stems from the ranks of physicians themselves.
1. Unwillingness to embrace activism
Pathologist and writer Rudolph Virchow once said: “The physician is the natural attorney of the poor.” Like most physicians, my goal is to provide evidence-based …
From 2009 to 2012, I directed the graduate course “Fundamentals of Clinical Preventive Medicine” at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. It was a required course for Hopkins preventive medicine residents, and also usually attracted other master’s level public health students and undergraduates with a strong interest in medicine. The class size was 15 to 25 students. In that setting, with a small group who generally believed that …
On May 15, President Trump attempted to kill not just two, but three birds with one tweet, simultaneously denouncing the Media and the Mueller investigation, and crowing about his approval ratings. “Can you believe that with all of the made up, unsourced stories I get from the Fake News Media, together with the $10,000,000 Russian Witch Hunt (there is no Collusion), I now have my best …
The following are intended to inspire to medical students and residents to learn more about organized medicine. Whether it be at the national, state, county, or specialty level, there are numerous societies with opportunities for contribution.
1. To pull back the curtain. Many physicians are innately curious and like to “see how the sausage is made,” so to speak. There is a great deal of policy behind the scenes of our …
I’m writing this piece because I’m finally at the point that I am truly angry. I am angry at how physicians have become devalued in modern health care. I’m angry at how systems of care have participated in this by replacing physicians with lesser trained mid-level practitioners. I’m angry at how our title “doctor” has been hijacked to allow patients to be misled or, in many cases, deceived.
It wasn’t that …
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), widely known as “Obamacare,” has survived several repeal attempts by Congress. Storm clouds, however, are still on the horizon.
The ACA’s individual mandate obligates every American to be covered by comprehensive health insurance. This requirement has been the most unpopular feature of the law. That’s because healthy people, especially those who are self-employed or between jobs, have found the ACA premiums too expensive.
They are not alone. Health …
She said her insurance wouldn’t cover her oxygen.
I didn’t believe her. She needed it. She had an irreversible lung disease that made walking a block feel like a hundred-yard sprint. It was no trouble showing she needed it– her blood oxygen levels would drop below 85 percent with any activity (normal levels are between 95 to 100 percent). Surely this was a minor administrative hurdle. I told her I was …
Why is U.S. health care so costly compared to other developed countries? A recently published report provides some insights.
In a study of 11 countries, Harvard researchers found that while the United States has the highest health costs relative to its GDP, its use of services is average. More specifically, the U.S. ranks lower than nearly every other country in doctors’ visits, hospitalizations, hospital days, and consultative services.
The difference is …
All eyes are on interest rates as investors look for more signs of trouble ahead.
If their concerns over higher-than-expected inflation prove accurate, many players in the U.S. economy will suffer the burden of higher costs. But perhaps no sector would feel the strain more than health care. Higher costs would be just the start of many problems to come for providers, insurers and, eventually, patients.
Surging inflation would create a vicious …
There is an accepted storyline in American health care that is so ingrained in our culture that it is almost beyond question. It goes like this. The chief culprit underlying the high-cost, low-quality American health care system is the traditional fee-for-service payment model, which rewards physicians for the volume of services they provide with no consideration for the quality of care being delivered.
The answer, the story goes on to say, …
U.S. health care costs are high – over $3 trillion annually and about 18 percent of our GDP. Estimates suggest that our costs are rising. Concomitantly, we are entering an era of extreme biomedical promise, where research breakthroughs are translating into unprecedented clinical benefit.
Luxturna from Spark therapeutics, for example, remarkably restores vision loss in patients with a specific eye disease. With amazing innovations, …
Anyone who has ever tried to buy health insurance in the open marketplace knows how difficult and expensive it can be. I spent years working at jobs that did not provide health insurance, and I remember the annual feeling of dread when I received notice of the new premium increase. The only way I could keep the cost affordable was by continually raising the deductible until eventually, I was paying …
The way doctors and hospitals are paid is undergoing a quick and quiet revolution in an attempt to control costs and improve health outcomes. Federal payers are driving this change from fee-for-service payments to reimbursements based on quality outcomes and measurements of clinical processes. This focus on clinical outcomes does not account for the deep inequities that drive poor health outcomes in the United States. Without measuring and paying for …
2017 has been open season on the psyche of the 45th president of the United States. Psychiatrists and psychologists have gone public to express their concerns about his perceived state of mind despite the established Goldwater rule that it is unethical for them to diagnose mental illness in a living public figure they haven’t examined and whose consent they have not obtained. The consensus seems to be the Donald J. …
I entered medical school with an intense desire to take care of others. A naturally — sometimes overbearingly — caring person with a penchant for science, becoming a physician was my dream since middle school.
My naiveté was quickly slapped by reality when I realized people enter medicine for many other reasons: prestige, job stability, income or a genius fascination of science that sometimes overlooks the suffering human. This crushed my …
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