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Section: Blogs/Opinion

Suicides Can Be Prevented

Suicide can be prevented. In 2014, more than 42,000 Americans took their own lives and almost half a million Americans received medical care for self-inflicted injuries. September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day, and the entire month is dedicated to suicide prevention awareness in the United States. Help prevent suicide in your community by knowing […]

September 13, 2016

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Head Injuries — Time for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Walk Away

Long ago, you escaped the enormous shadow of your father. Lately, you’ve ensured an important legacy all your own by raising a caution flag on head injuries in NASCAR. Now, it’s time to seriously consider walking away. For good. Earnhardt is already sitting out the rest of 2016 to deal with the lingering effects of […]

September 8, 2016

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How Health Systems Can Tackle Disparities

After more than a decade asking why factors such as race, ethnicity, income, gender and sexual orientation often correlate with poorer health and health care quality for so many Americans, perhaps the biggest question is what can health care providers do about it. After more than a decade of asking why factors such as race, […]

September 2, 2016

The Rural Blog: Heroin Overdoses Raise Concern Drugs Came From Same Batch

A rash of heroin overdoses reported in the last two weeks in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, has officials concerned the drugs came from the same batch, “likely mixed with either fentanyl or carfentanil,” Harrison Jacobs reports for Business Insider. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, “is 80 to 100 times as powerful as morphine and […]

August 31, 2016

Medical School Diversity Means Better Health Care Later

American medical schools are suffering from a severe case of economic and racial homogeneity, which is fueling physician shortages in vulnerable communities. Doctors are most likely to work in areas that share their demographics. White medical students from wealthy backgrounds tend to return to well-off, predominantly white locales to practice. Conversely, communities that produce few […]

August 29, 2016

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Blog Series: History of Nursing

The blog series profiles influential nurses, unsung nursing heroes, diversity in nursing and the history of nursing education and explores the roles each played in the development of the profession. “Nursing is one of the most rapidly evolving professions in the field of healthcare,” says Judy Burckhardt, Ph.D., MAEd, MSN, RN, Dean and Professor, Nursing […]

August 24, 2016

No Child Should Die from Dental Anesthesia

Caleb Sears was a healthy 6-year-old boy who was looking forward to ice cream treats after his elective dental surgery. Before his dental extraction, Caleb’s parents were told that, despite being generally safe, intravenous anesthesia has a risk of serious complications, including brain damage and death. What they weren’t told was that anesthesia standards of […]

August 22, 2016

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A Black Doctor’s Perspective

I wake up at 5 a.m. to get ready for another day to see my patients. The moment I step into the hospital, I put on my long white coat. Not because it’s a part of my uniform, but because if I don’t wear it, people won’t think this young female black woman is a […]

August 17, 2016

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Wakeup Call on Mental Health

More than 30 years ago I published a paper that examined violent incidents involving African-American and white patients in an inpatient psychiatric facility. To the surprise of nearly everyone at the time, the study found African-Americans patients were less violent than whites. The study has been replicated multiple times, and the explanation was that African-American […]

August 16, 2016

Not a fish tale: Eating fatty fish is good for your health, doc says

There’s no question that we Americans don’t have enough fish in our diets. As little fish as we eat, we consume even less fatty fish, which is a bigger tragedy. Fatty fish — herring, sardines, salmon, tuna, trout and others — are our only source of fish oil (outside of supplementation). Doctors are particularly concerned […]

August 11, 2016

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Mind games – The psychology of Olympic competition

For Olympic athletes, the pressure of the Games can be immense. Often, years of training and preparation culminate in one shot to make that work pay off, all in a setting where expectations are high and the whole world is watching. We speak with sports psychologist David Fletcher, a researcher and consultant for professional and […]

August 9, 2016

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Female athlete triad: Protecting the health and bones of active young women

As the 2016 summer Olympics get underway, we will see elite women athletes compete at the highest level of their sports. And as we cruise toward September, many more young women will return to the field, court, and pool on college and high school teams. We know that many women who don’t consider themselves athletes […]

August 4, 2016

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CDC Report Underscores Need for HPV Vaccination

A decade after the FDA approved the first vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the incidence of HPV-associated cancers is rising, with the number of HPV-associated cancers diagnosed annually between 2008 and 2012 increasing by approximately 16% compared with the previous […]

August 2, 2016

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The CDC Says Doctors Should Screen More Pregnant Women for Zika

Doctors in the U.S. should proactively screen at-risk pregnant women for the Zika virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “All pregnant women in the United States and U.S. territories should be assessed for possible Zika virus exposure at each prenatal care visit,” reads a new memo the CDC released on Monday. […]

July 28, 2016

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Ghostbusters needed to show that black women can be scientists too

When the Ghostbusters reboot was announced, it was hailed as a victory for feminism. The film stars Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy as four women who save the world from an onslaught of ghosts, and I enjoyed it when I saw it. But it bothered me that while all the white […]

July 26, 2016

Can super-sizing start with baby bottles?

As a country, we have a weight problem. A stunning two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, putting them at risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and all the other health problems obesity brings. While there are myriad reasons we are getting fatter as a nation, one very real and simple one is that […]

July 21, 2016

Op-Ed: Data ignores health care challenges for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

Six years later, more than 20 million people have gained health coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While this is an achievement worth celebrating, millions continue to go without health insurance and finding them can be difficult due to lacking data from previous enrollment periods. Are all communities and groups being counted in […]

July 19, 2016

Farting: Seven Surprising And Spectacular Health Benefits

These days, it seems to me that people are coy about absolutely everything. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the appeal of maintaining an air of mystery. Still, sometimes you just have to square your shoulders and call a spade a spade. I think this is especially true when it comes to information on leading […]

July 14, 2016