By the end of this year, the US will have a new president as well some new members of Congress. The results of the 2016 election will not only effect […]
US healthcare
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—How I got the Cuba HIV story wrong
I recently reported on the World Health Organization’s announcement that Cuba was the first country in the world to halt mother-to-child transmission of HIV, an accomplishment praised by WHO’s director-general, […]
William Cayley: Will mid-level practitioners replace primary care physicians?
I recently asked whether, in light of the relative drop in the number of trainees entering family medicine in the US compared to other specialties, we can continue to find […]
William Cayley: What’s in the future for US family medicine?
Once again, after waiting with bated breath, hope, and anxiety, medical students and residency programs alike have received the results of the annual residency “match.” After months of seemingly endless […]
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—The New York Doctors’ Riot
Harriet Washington, a medical ethicist and author, opened a recent talk saying, “Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, heroes of the newly minted American Republic, did not spend 15 April 1788, […]
Steve Ruffenach: Electronic health records—time for machines to start sharing
Las Vegas hosted the Healthcare Information and Management System Society (HiMSS) annual meeting again last week. With more than 45,000 people in attendance, it is at once intense and unwieldy. […]
William Cayley: Single payer healthcare—is it here already?
Despite all the hand wringing and arguments over single payer healthcare in American social debates past and present, what most observers seem to miss (but patients and doctors know very well) […]
Huw Green: Schizophrenia—what doesn’t exist?
Jim van Os provides an excellent summary of why many clinicians and researchers (especially the latter) have become frustrated with the imprecision of the term schizophrenia. Among scientists, calls to abandon […]
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—When is patient consent needed?
While I was reporting on a study for The BMJ, I suddenly felt as if I’d walked through Alice’s Looking Glass. You’ve possibly heard about the study by now: researchers […]
Saurabh Jha: Britain’s junior doctors are not apprentices
It was Boxing Day weekend. The consultant surgeon summoned the on-call team. “We face a calamity,” he said. The house officer had called in sick. The locum wasn’t going to […]