Medical

“Separated by less than a month (Boseman on August 28th and Ginsburg on September 18th) and both due to gastrointestinal cancers (Boseman had colon cancer and Ginsburg had pancreatic cancer), the situations of Ginsburg’s and Boseman’s deaths is emblematic of the racial disparity in American health outcomes. Boseman was African American/Black and was diagnosed with…

I recently returned from Northwest Territories, where I’d been working as a physician for six months. Now, back in Nova Scotia, I’m reflecting on what it’s been like to have worked in areas of Canada with relatively few cases of COVID-19. A large part of my work is hospital medicine. As the name implies, a…

Just as providers have reimagined their clinical and business models in light of the pandemic, there is an opportunity to reimagine their relationship with health plans. Particularly in the context of evolving value-based contracts, there are a variety of “asks” that are likely to find receptive health plans. Three issues that are particularly important to…

I was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, heading to Ukraine “to make a difference,” or so I hoped. I was leading a medical mission to this beautiful yet poor and war-torn country. I was watching the movie First Man about the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon that epic day in July 1969. I…

“To become successful, you need to be excellent and likable,” said a local Black physician giving advice to young underrepresented students facing the usual challenges of medical school. “Black excellence is the only way forward. The system and the institutions are racist, but we just need to work extra hard. If we do, we will…

We all want our children to be able to go back to school. What we don’t want is for them — or their teachers — to get sick from COVID-19. There is no easy, let alone perfect, solution, which is why, a year into the pandemic, there is no clear way forward. Recently the Centers…

“When it comes to using telehealth to treat patients out of state, most physicians are mindful about licensure issues. But some are not aware that if you don’t have a license to practice medicine in a given state, it isn’t just malpractice: It’s a criminal offense. Licensing restrictions have been eased to facilitate care during…

The “model minority” is a term that denotes Asians in the U.S.  East Asians, in particular, have been the target of xenophobic hate crimes and microaggressions since the outset of COVID-19. When a former presidential administration used hate and fear to garner power, it does not surprise me, that Sinophobia runs rampant during these times.…