"So how can health systems and clinicians provide patients with an improved, consumer-friendly experience while also making strides to decrease provider administrative burden and burnout? They need to embrace virtual care beyond just video visits and...
"She kept quiet, but she had planted the seed. Interestingly I did not talk much about work during the appointment, so her question stirred my thoughts. Why did she think it was work-related? I started to look at my daily routine. I was able to...
"Pfizer has a particular onus to help intervene globally as one of the largest and most profitable pharmaceutical companies in the world. With its immense capital power, Pfizer should shift some of their spending from national ads promoting their...
"Too often in medicine, health care providers assume what patients want or need. Like the crocodile, we may assume all patients would want a tire removed in order to help extend their life – even if the cure meant losing the only thing that made...
"I am ashamed of the callous, avoidant goodbyes that have been made in my name, and I regret the distress caused by this widely accepted standard. The determined patients will figure it out anyway, and the less-resourceful ones are left confused,...
"It turns out that living beings are less like bags of sloshing water, as I imagined in grade school, and more like a stew. While water makes up most of it, water alone is thin and empty of the organic molecules from which organisms are built—the...
"Unconscious bias in health care describes associations or attitudes that reflexively alter our perceptions, thereby unintentionally affecting behavior, interactions, and decision-making. Health care organizations need to be actively discussing this...
"We need to address the underlying preventable factors that cause more Black Americans to die of heart attacks and strokes and suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes complications than white Americans instead of focusing on non-existent...
"There is something about physically putting pen to paper, that connection between your mind and your body that is just very health-inducing. And it takes time. And often we do not dedicate the time to taking care of ourselves and something as simple...
"Two issues drive teen substance use: drug availability and perception of risk. Availability: Today’s teens know that obtaining substances is far too easy. For example, 70 percent of high school seniors say marijuana is either “fairly easy” or...
"It was probably in early 1803, as Jenner’s fame swelled and more doctors were adopting vaccination, when Bell met a farmer with a curious story. The farmer’s name was Benjamin Jesty, from the Downshay farm in a nearby village. Seeing the growing...
"I suspect that some of the nearly 20 percent of physicians who have quit their jobs during this pandemic needed to feel this relief, too. They needed to feel the relief of having no plan. No 'if this, then that.' They needed to just exist in the now....
"Reducing the occurrence of comorbid mental and physical disorders will require an integrated model combining medical and behavioral health care services. The window of opportunity is open for health insurers and employers to invest in employee...
"If we want a more effective health care system, it needs to be re-engineered to revolve around the true center of gravity – the patient. We must involve patients early and often in the design of health policy, health technology, and health care...
"I do not hesitate to share what I endured. I recognize that there is a code of silence that must be broken when one is involved in legal action. It is imperative that we speak out to patients, legislators, and other physicians against these types of...
"Now more than ever, our profession needs to move toward racial healing. There is an urgent need for nursing to acknowledge its history of racism, boldly confront racism wherever it shows up, and address the racism that nurses witness when delivering...
"What exactly is my obligation to medicine? Am I supposed to practice medicine forever? Is it my duty? Do I have to continue serving my patients, the hospital, and society because of these expectations? The answer is simple: You get to decide. Most...
"Deeming individuals 'non-decisional' for misinformed beliefs that are not representative of a psychiatric illness is inappropriate, unfairly medicalizes the narrative and incurs a risk of further public distrust of the health care system. It is not...
"Far from signaling weakness, asking for and receiving help is not only a sign of strength, but a sign of courageous leadership. And so, I ask you to put on your own oxygen mask, and then to reach out and help your colleagues put on theirs, too. As...
"With government and industry working hand in hand, we can develop and stockpile monoclonal antibody therapeutics in anticipation of variants to come. We need to be thinking several moves ahead to keep ahead of variants so that stockpiles of therapies...
"I have spent years in silence about my career decisions, nervous that my inability to take call and inability to thrive while sleep-deprived could be seen as weaknesses. Being afraid to admit I was advocating for my mental health and my life....
"That year, 2020, Uğur told the crowd, would be the year BioNTech proved the doubters wrong. There was no time to lose. Soon after he’d finished his talk, Uğur hopped on a plane to Seattle, where he met with a team at the Bill & Melinda Gates...
"America’s health care workers are on the brink of collapse. If we want them to hold on and be there for us when we are too sick to walk, stand or breathe, we must act now. Cast aside political opinions. Follow CDC guidelines. Wear masks when you...
"As a doctor, it is pretty humbling to reflect on the fairly minimal impact our health care system has on individuals’ overall health. One study I find particularly intriguing shows that socioeconomic factors (e.g., education and income), and...